Live your values said a voice
that wasn’t a voice at all,
although I heard it on the phone
when I picked up the phone to call
my mother, who died
six months ago.
What was I thinking of?
I know
she’s dead. I touched her hands
(a knuckle, really—and very lightly)
as she lay in the silk-lined box.
I absolutely
couldn’t kiss her sunken face goodbye
as others were able to.
After I knelt near her a while,
there was nothing else to do
because she needed nothing from me.
How can a life just be done?
Done also what life was to her
alone, which no one
else can comprehend,
even (or especially) her son.
Is this why I forgot she’s dead
and picked up the phone
to punch in her number
believing she’d answer,
and my brain said what she’d say
to me? Is she not done with me?