You Can't Leave Me
Walking into the room,
I greet her and announce myself:
Her daughter, still willowing above her
But still reduced to a small shaking child.
REWR REWR REWR REWR!
My aunt translates her words
And has said that she is saying,
"You can't leave me!"
REWR REWR REWR REWR!
Spoken in staccato.
I talk to her,
Feed her, brush her hair.
It's not what she wants.
She looks at me with
Finality despite her
Eternal confusion.
Four syllables.
This time she replies
In four syllables,
A softer tone.
But the meaning
Has turned to pleading.
REWR REWR REWR REWR!
She demands again.
A nurse comes in and asks
Her if she's in pain.
"No!"
Her blurted out
One clear word
Surprises the room.
Avoiding my tears, I tell her
I understood that.
REWR REWR REWR REWR!
She persists
Again and again,
Over and over.
More and more.
We've watched Death
Take over her body
Slowly, in painful spurts.
Death took her hips,
Her bladder, her legs.
Not satisfied, he took her
Mind.
This month he crawled
Into her face,
Dropped the remains of her hair and
Squinched her blue almond doe eyes,
The only other things she ever gave to me at all,
Shut in a permanent wince,
Slurred her speech.
It's not fair her last words are
Completely incomprehensible.
It's not fair that the abuse is
Completely undeniable.
Shortly after, Death took the rest of her.
At a funeral home,
Day before her short, disrespctful funeral
Will occur,
We all leave.
I am the last to go.
As I walk out,
I picture her
Calling for her youngest
Twice from the casket,
Then a pleading insistence,
YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME.
I stop mid-step and turn back
Hesitantly.
She always hated
Being left alone
When alive,
But she had pushed us all away.
Mother, I'm so sorry.
That final day together in your room at the resthome,
And tonight as they lock up the funeral home,
And tomorrow after you're placed in the grave,
We had to leave you
As you left us before we were ever born.
