

-NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER-
LINDA H.Y. HEGLAND

Watching My Mother Die
Hermeneutic Chaos Issue #1 - May 2014 "Utterance"
My mother lay, moonight at her feet.
Starched, white sheets enshrouding her,
brutal wires and pulsing tubes limining her body like an Old World map.
I focused on just the corner of her mouth,
rolling an imaginary telescope tight
so her mouth (sweet kisses, murmured songs) could not be imputed to her face.
The corner of her mouth then
became like a raindrop on a windowpane,
slowly responding to gravity (grace),
changing shape, becoming and unbecoming,
as it drew close to the force that pulled it to itself.
At one point my mother blew
gently out of her mouth, a final sorrow.
And it was like when one raindrop meets another
on its descent down the glass.
It embraced the breath shape and veered gracefully
in another direction.
My mother sighed, face up,
the corner of her moth flattened and smoothed
like the raindrop when it puddles on the sill
and then runs along the line of the pane -
Dissipating to mothingness.
Like my mother, moonlight at her feet.