It was Mother on the phone, and she sounded
well, finally out of his misery.
Her breathing was good, her lungs
clear, after the near suffocation
of his last year. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.
Drowning people will do anything for air.
“Do you still hear his whistle?” I asked,
and she said, “Sometimes it
wakes me in the morning, yes.”
It had hung, silver and serene, near his hand
and in her last dream.
Or was it the mockingbird she heard
that took up the summons he had mastered?
What with her nearly deaf and him so feeble
some last calls surely went unanswered
and some answers came faithfully
in response to nothing
more than a gray bird perched
at the top of a lemon tree,
pleading for help.