When it happened: when my mother’s nerves ended and felt nothing ever after:

I felt nothing, / until we were already stuck in the after.

The feelers in both our spines were asleep, in bed as we began but under different ceilings. And it bothers me, that my nerves didn’t stretch far enough, weren’t open enough for this,

when those in her back would feel me dancing. I sent a text about nine, saying how I hadn’t liked leaving her in the hospital room. We’d be back first thing. No one (they said) could have known what was coming. ‘She’ll be asleep now,’ my dad said, and switched channels. We turned the light off, with that signal

of an unread message, grey / and leaking hers

but not our ending.