yesterday, she watched over
the world,
and decided it was time it
had to go, these brittle
stock of trees, the average
birthday cards showcasing
how lonely life can
really be

she feels the spooling
of your indifference
in her casual milky years,
sprained with a blush
of memories she'd like
to dissolve in her
mother's tea to make
her remember
because she forgets
sometimes

in the pawn shop, i
found her old books
where she had inscribed
tiny words next to plath,
cummings and sexton

maybe they were small
because
she was never good enough

my own sky bleeds in that
territory
of shame

as i walk past her door,
siren wails emerge and
flock around her house

the mother, i think, its
the mother that has finally
died, given
to the shadow of
the alzeimer's cancer

but it is her they bring out
in their hands, and lifted
into the blue ambulance

there, by the wood fence
that has her name carved
in them when she was a
girl
like me,

there, i stand next to the
mother,

grey-haired and blank
innocence pulled in her eyes
she looks and me and
asks,
"who's the girl they
took
away?"

above our heads, a garden
of swollen clouds
pries into our private
thoughts.