my sister thought my mother
had died on her lap;
she walked to the bathroom
inside that depthless hospital hotel.

the putrid smell of life and death
all through-out this concrete heaven
and hell.

at the age of fifty-four
my mother's bones would
carry no more weight.

her gentle heart
her forgiving mind
her words so strong

but mine,
they are forced out
by constricted wind-pipes
and angry words

i glanced down at the cot, where my mother died
as I made contact with my mother's pale-blue eyes
she looked at me with the most helpless,
childish face I've ever seen.
as if to say:
"he isn't here.. where is he...
where could he be?"

she lived thirty more minutes.

he arrived a few hours later, asking:
"how's she doin'?"

never take for granted,
someone's borrowed time.

this day was not like any other.
hot air from her lungs
swirled steam in the death
of November.

I felt trust for the first time.
I trusted her to leave.

I crack a corny joke out of sheer anxiety,
I say: "Well, it is the fall."

She doesn't smile, or speak, of course.

She does the talking with her eyes,
and all I hear is goodbye.

i am afraid we have begun to dissociate,
unable to dissolve, I dissipate

we lavish emotion, laugh laudably
and cry with our larynx ripped out of our throats

i just need a little attention

'cause it's midday
and the midwife has a migraine,
with spoiled milk and clogged drains,
laundry a mile-long with tenuous children
tense with grimace and gray

we believe uncertainty for the hopeless and expectations for the great

the subtle hum
followed by slithering smirks
followed by snarls and sneers and weird sober
social experiments,
followed by small town dramas
and big time hypocrites.

from time to time, I still think of you.

how we used to get by...

how I fell beneath one-thousand shades;
sunrise orange, and dainty red.            
learning we were both
capable of the          
                         tilt,
                               turn,
                                       twist,
                                                 and
                                                             ­    verge.                           

I used to thank you
for spending the nights
in the living-room.
Instead of his room.

You would say,
"I like falling asleep with you,
but waking up next to him."

Yes, the bitterness is
mostly gone.
                                                           ­    
                                                            ­        
I still think of you
every now and then

today,
I awoke
as if we were
still the past.
constantly, and
ineffectually
hounding after
the future.
only to be forever
preserved in the present.
we are the
exact moment
when you have forgotten
a fading dream.
an entire world,
lost in your sleep.