LINDA H.Y. HEGLAND

Watching My Mother Die

ArtAscent, February 2015, DISTINGUISHED WRITER

 

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Like my mother, moonlight at her feet.