Mother ( IV )

Spilt bleach on my eyes dig the

Shape of a railed bed, the woman

Strewn about it. Permanently – I've

Abandoned the steel-wool-scrubbing. She

Doubles over, her spine a spasmodic

Fire hose planted with a row of loose knots,

An aggressive wave filling the room with

The slap of sick on plastic.

It took that rocky gulp to make me feel

Truly bodiless. The finger-guillotine, itch of

One defeated rids the senselessness

Of sun in sky, sun perched on land.

I wiped the slime from the betrayal of her

Mouth. Noise, noise, cauterizing our
Honeycomb. I was deaf in the tide of her

Silence, my alien arm reaching for every croak.

It is a hard sight to dismiss, your

Mother crumpled in a hospital gown,

Especially when a blanket of dirt teased

Her like happiness. So much noise is a chisel.

My head first filled with chokes and hair –

Then, her being rolled away from my following,

The nearing crunch of the mole, the squeal
Of the ripening baby that tripped her.

© 2015 BENJAMIN SMITH