***Warning for triggering "images" of death/grief/trauma.***
Ice chips.
I gasp from a night's fog.
Ghosts came home with me from the 9th floor.
Ice chips.
None of the nurses said anything to me
whenever I entered the employee only pantry
with a styrofoam cup to get
ice chips.
Unstrapping the bi-pap mask feels like
apologizing for plunging my mother's head into water.
If we're lucky,
I can slip a third ice chip into her mouth before
I re-strap what must feel like a bear trap
of air wrapped around her head.
She points out the window.
She flicks invisible shackles
off her legs before trying to swing them over the side of the bed.
I ask her where she's going every time,
knowing that she can't answer until
finally
I ask:
"Do you want to go home? Is that where you're trying to go?"
She nods yes —
delirious.
I clutch my heart,
clutch her hand
and, tell her,
"Yes, you can go home if you want. Don't worry about me and daddy. We will meet you there."
Every hour I flinch now.
Ice chips.
Bed up.
Bed down.
Mama there's nothing behind the curtains what are you pointing at oh my God.
Whatever ghosts were at her bedside followed me,
and jolt me awake as my leaden body
moves to get
ice chips.
Except I'm already home.
Without her.
YOU ARE READING
A votive that has un-mothered
PoetryA collection of grief poems from losing my mother to cancer. I may or may not keep this up here. I doubt there's any audience for this kind of thing on this site. Trigger warning. Lots of raw imagery in these poems. You can follow Rachel's work on...
