Early Mother's Day poems

My mother has been gone now for over eight years. But she lived a good long life. She was 94 when she died. I wrote the first two poems when she was in very ill health during her last year. I wrote the last poem after her death. Some mother-daughter relationships are tough. I know mine was. But even now, I few days early, she is on my mind. Rest in peace, Hilda. You deserve it.

Dream World

I look toward my mother's bed

in its sunny spot by the window.

The young nurse with her

is smiling. They both are.

She lies in bed, the light blue hospital gown

she’s wearing has a tiny geometric print

of triangles, squares and circles in shades

of gray, burgundy and a dark blue.

Her pinkish skin looks healthy,

and her thin, white hair is brushed off her face.

After the nurse leaves, she looks at me

with wide, bright eyes and asks,

“Do you want to play bridge? We need a fourth.”

“I haven’t played in years," I say

and she accepts that excuse,

pointing her long painted nails

to two or three other people

she imagines are in the room with her.

“They will play,” she says.

I stand by her bed stroking her damp forehead,

holding her bony hand still bruised from the needles

that had been stuck into it.

I brush my fingers down her white,

silky legs, now devoid of hair.

 “Do I look a mess?” she asks.

The setting sun casts a shadow across her bed.

“No, you look wonderful,” I say.

She smiles up at me, not minding

that her mouth is without her bottom dentures

and brags that her cousins, Virginia and Cal,

always tell her how good she looks

and how well-dressed she is.

Even in this hospital bed

with her gown hiked almost up to her diaper,

she cares how she looks.

I try to pull her gown down

but she keeps grabbing onto it.

I cover her with a sheet,

and sit down to watch her play cards

with her invisible partners.

She uses her night gown as her bridge hand.

“Six spades,” she proclaims

and tells me to play out. I play out.

She continues picking at her gown

trying to lift off each pattern section

one by one as if it were a card

and place it on the imaginary

table in front of her.

I want to know what happened to her,

and what can be done about it.

 “Hospitalitis,” the nurse says

like she has seen this kind of behavior

a million times before.

So, with nothing to be done

to fix her, I go back to the bed

and continue play acting with her.

I am thankful too. Her mind is taking her to

that other place where she is young and beautiful

and loved on the west side of Chicago

with her husband and relatives and friends.

I haven’t seen her so happy in years.

“I like this little room,” she tells me.

And I am glad.

Letting Go

She flexed her fists

on the cold bed railing

keeping in time

with the rhythm of her heartbeats.

Soon her hold relaxed,

and with fingers intertwined

she wrapped her hands around the bar.

Drugged from the morphine potion

placed under her tongue,

she lay in a ball like a sleeping skeleton,

her head tucked into her sunken chest.

I sat with her, stroked her arm

like a skinny rail itself

and soothed the damp hair off her forehead

until she pushed me away

and took hold the railing again.

Finally too weak to reach her metal friend,

she allowed her folder fingers

to rest on the bed.

And I, kissing her graying, fading face

said my last I love you and goodbye.

A woman strong until the end

took 94 years to finally let go.

Long Division

I gathered all the papers that had piled high

on my desk for weeks and put them

into nice neat stacks – Medicare receipts,

bank statements, insurance policy,

tax stuff, paid bills, unpaid bills, funeral records,

and a special pile called Memorabilia –

with her typed up life story in her own words,

her citizenship decree and

her husband’s death certificate.

I shoved the papers into file folders

and put them into the bottom left hand drawer

of my desk. Out of the way, out of sight and

out of mind. This division of papers was the last step.

We had already divided her things.

My brother got the breakfront,

my sister took home the Illadro figurine,

and I have her diamond watch.

Each piece of furniture, each piece of silver, china

and jewelry laid out and chosen one by one

by her three children

until there was nothing left.