My mother’s sister, Mary Sanders, wailed
You muthafucka! just before throat-snorting
the contents of her perfectly-portioned dinner
and hawking a glob of it toward the wall
beside my head. Her eyes were rolling worlds,
lit maniacally from behind, her hair steamed
and untwirling. The hospital room smelled
warmly of spittle, scream, and scrubbed piss,
and again I cursed my mother for portioning
my teenage time this way, charging me with
the third-shift-weekends spoon-feeding of my
unraveled aunt, her brain dimmed and distanced
by Alzheimer’s and errant shards of Mississippi.
She recognized none of us, slapped and spat
at our attempts to be relatives, and reveled
in her new hot vocabulary, rolling goddamnit
and shit and kiss my black country ass around
on her formerly God-fearing Delta tongue.
I pressed buttons for her, inched forkfuls
of dry chicken toward her clenched teeth,
wiped her venom from my cheeks and hair.
Other sicknesses whistled through her pores
and she slept fitfully, feces drying under her nails.
It was weeks before I noticed that my mother
wasn’t part of the reluctant rotation of caregivers.
She spent her days just outside the closed door
of her sister’s dismantling, numb to the blaring,
praying for God to enter the hospital room,
wrap His tired arms around someone, and leave.