MY MOTHER AFTER HER SECOND STROKE

When I call her on her eighty-sixth birthday, her words

come out slanted, complete within themselves, 

but unattached to any discernible subject or reference point. 

They rise like invisible threads into the air, circling, 

lingering, then going their separate ways. 

Sometimes she pauses, longer than expected,

as though trying to re-enter the doorway of thought. 

Sometimes a sound takes the place for a word or phrase. 

Her speech has become a palimpsest of sorts, 

her stories overlapping in time, ignoring the rules of 

present and past tense, refusing to stay put.

She speaks of her sister, gone now for decades, 

paying a visit, how they laughed and ordered chow mein. 

She tells me that her mother, my Grandma Artie, 

is sleeping in her room with her, an arrangement that 

she seems to find both comforting and amusing. 

"I wouldn't have believed it if you'd told me," 

she says in wonder, "but she's right here."

She tells me how they drove out to the old house 

on Western together, as though not a year had passed. 

"What do you think about that?," she asks, though 

it's less of a question and more an exclamation. 

I ask her what she thinks of it, then add that I'm happy 

they're getting this time together. She agrees.

But sleep is never far off, and she is tired again. 

Still, I hope there are one or two more stories to be told,

in whatever form. I will do my best to follow.

ECHOCARDIOGRAM

 

There was a time, not so long ago,

when a young woman's hand sweeping

gently, purposefully across your bare chest

would spark a rush of movement

within the blood, stir the recognition

of one flesh meeting another, somehow

both new and ancient at once.

But today you have crossed a threshold

of sorts, where this young woman,

who balances perfectly kindness and business,

measures every bruised and weary chamber

of your heart. "Breathe in," she intones,

"Now stop. Hold that breath...Good."

From the corner of your eye, you can see

the black and white of the ultrasound,

like a closeup of the moon, or years ago

seeing your daughter for the first time,

hiccupping within her mother's frame.

You think, too, of the Buddha, said to pass

into prajnanibbana this way, reclined

on his left side, eyes half-closed, neither

looking nor looking away. But this,

this, you think, is merely a form of limbo,

the moment midway through the play

when the stage lights dim to a dusty blue

and the whole of the set is quickly rearranged.

You sit upright, button your shirt, surprised

by the sudden return of clinical light.

You thank her for her trouble, take the old soldier

in your chest -- by turns too fast, too slow,

too big for its own good -- meandering

down the hall, and out into the wintery day,

blustery and colorless, quietly resigned

to whatever might happen next.