Be alright mother
hair as white as a glacier
cool white that forms the hallo
above her bed
where she motions the nurse’s aid:
I’m awake
come help me out of bed
I’m done
come help me off the toilet
Be alright old woman
her dazed blue eyes
blue as glory of the snow in April
searching me, her only son
for words she didn’t catch
from conversations
we never had, I see
her thoughts
like swirling eels
Be alright mom
with your weakened heart
and replaced joints
from recycled metal
that could have been
a girder to a skyscraper
or a nail to hang
a picture of Clint Eastwood
back when he could
put his boots
under her bed anytime
Be alright fading parent
I want to see you,
but does it have
to be like this
with your grown classmate
nodding off next to you
in the dayroom
TV blaring reruns of Gunsmoke
Miss Kitty’s earrings swinging
her mole big enough
to have its own lines
Be alight my friend
I can still see you
cracking hickory nuts
on the back porch
the chartreuse glow
of lightening bugs
blinking in the back yard
like nimble satellites
your cigarette moving about
like one red eye
between long hisses
Be alright, please
with a life that’s
come down to
a car that sits
in the driveway
calling you like a lonesome lover
houseplants that wait
through your recoveries
to be watered
stacks of papers,
past due notices
and pills packed clumsily
in their Monday to Friday cases
Be alright, dear God,
long enough to come home
to your EZ chair of creeping cat hair
to sleep in your own bed,
to listen to the tenant
patter overhead:
until we fall asleep
and dream of swimming
in Conesus Lake, our feet hobbled by the stones
the smell of French fries and vinegar call us to the shore
and the sight of wheelchairs
and the sentence of hospital beds
hold no fear over either of us.
