I no longer know what day it is and find myself thinking of my mother

 

And in the end

She was what she always was

My mother. Her body

the soft skin of her thighs

The veins on her hands mapping

Everywhere they’d been, Everything

They’d done.

Her gaze that betrayed her happiness

Her despair.

The warm scent of her.

Never wanting to be the center

of any room, but allowing us this.

 

In the end

I slept each night in her room

Curled in two hospital chairs

Her breath my lullaby,

Mother and child again.

 

Julia Klatt Singer