She lay, some distortion,
her head wrenched back
as if the machines burst forth
from her pale, clenched jaw,
while her eyes,
glossy and vacant,
did not even stare,
just sat dead in their sockets.
And everyone came,
touched her swollen hands
and the thin, translucent skin
taut over the veins…
No, she was not
my mother, no longer,
from the moment she died
in my father’s arms on the floor.
Instead, some abstract painting
or poem -
each searched her limply twisted body
read the twitches and tensing muscles
as if they were so artfully planned,
as if each carried meaning.
“I know in my heart,
in my gut, I can feel it,”
with their hands clasped over their knees,
they’d insist.
I wondered if my two
had failed, just like hers,
so exactly, so exclusively,
for I felt nor knew nothing of the hope that they found.