Losing My Mother
It is 1:47 a.m. when the call comes,
shattering sleep the way waves
break on Florida's shell-stocked shores.
Even before my sister's voice thrusts
through the silence, I, a mother, too,
know to expect nothing but bad news.
How to navigate the steady storm
of tears, hear out the stuttered words,
one after another so slowly spoken
between the breaths of the one
delivering, the one receiving —
"She's gone." — and never again
to be that lonely child looking up
into her mama's eyes, seeking
forgiveness for love's clearly blind.
© 2018 Maureen E. Doallas
Also see my poem 'for Mama' in the comments section of this Tweetspeak Poetry post.
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2 comments:
Drew Myron: Thank you, Drew, for your comment "Lovely, sad, and true"; I accidentally deleted it while using my iPad. Thank you for being so wonderful a friend.
The strangeness that is between parent and child, the wide birth of our lives. Never quite knowing why it keeps going somehow after we are dead and not quite gone. They are just things, the very old say. Just things, give them away.
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