has made a tent out of the sheet over Ma
so nothing will touch her skin,
what skin she has left.
I can’t look at her,
I can’t recognize her.
She smells like scorched meat.
Her body groaning there,
it looks nothing like my ma.
It doesn’t even have a face.
Daddy brings her water,
and drips it inside the slit of her mouth
by squeezing a cloth.
She can’t open her eyes,
she cries out
when the baby moves inside her,
otherwise she moans,
day and night.
I wish the dust would plug my ears
so I couldn’t hear her.
July 1934