Dying looked at me
today
out of the eyes of a dead squirrel
said I'm coming, wait for me.
I realized I had been
and stopped.
Since
her dying
my mother has moved in with me.
I carry her, pick-a-back into the future,
what was rich and needful in her life
now mine.
The
weapons we have against dying
are carried in the flesh: weapons
of bone, the heart, a bowl
full of memory and bones, the hands
growing the shape of their ancestors', slight
arthritic ache begins to turn
the fingers in: beggars' hands
their
permanent wanting.
Electric
live wire squirrels in the park,
acrobatic
tree hoppers, nut casers
but not hard
nuts to crack:
dying
got one of you today.
I
would have said death
but it's not the same, is it?
My
mother has been dead two years:
a history,
a dwelling, a
marker, a memory,
but
her dying, oh,
that was an event.
