its mind had slipped away
into a retronormative haze
that note was as vital today
as it e’er will be yesterday

i still craved to call it mother
the skin caving over bone
staring black through the core of me
ne’er could it known what it was alone

in my dreams she asks where i am
where am i while she is dying
subglacial in the suffering
palatial in her pain

fretting without absolution
for everything to be born again
but there was bark in the honey
& blood e’er in the trees & grain

tho’ time with it was nothing to me
ne’er could i bear take its hands
so i chose to dissemble in airless gloom
as forests desiccated to sand

in my dreams she asks where i am
where am i while she is dying
subglacial in the suffering
palatial in her pain

celestial in our infancy
all us skybound lust e’er for life
but the night my mother was dying
i slept too peacefully profound

(I should’ve been there in her final months but I couldn’t bear to witness what dementia had done to her mind and body. My Father was there. I think my Sister was there. I wasn’t. My Mother who had carried me. My Mother who’d taught me the beauty and value of kindness. I let her down by staying away, and now I have dreams where she’s still alive. She’s happy and full of years in the way she should always have been.)