The Sand Hill Review http://www.sandhillreview.org 2005
The Seasons of Mother’s Last Year
I
rock inside the tent of my dress,
gripped
by a contraction of birth
or grief; how
closely spaced they are—
my
first child’s arrival, your last
move.
I help you pack, watch the veins
pulse
on the backs of your hands
as
you lift a blown-glass vase
from
the sill, wrap its turquoise belly
in
newspaper. Fourth-floor sun splatters
through
the rest, zealous brush
on
walls barer each minute.
I
bring you the baby at Thanksgiving,
premature
bundle you settle into your lap
with
a practiced clucking, coax to grab
your
finger. Later, you drift in your muumuu
in
and out of the new apartment, rearranging
potted
plants. But not even your cactus
and
succulents flush against the outside
stucco,
the crown of thorns wreathed
in
red, can warm these cinder block
walls,
the pale blue of a Motel 6.
All through the rainy winter, you
burrow in your recliner, cat slung
along your leg; you raise and lower
the TV volume as the wall heater
belches on and off. I watch your white
hair fall out, watch the baby’s thicken
to a tan mat under your ever moving
fingers. When I leave Sunday evening,
desolation sweeps away your diminishing
wave in my rear-view mirror.
Come
spring, we bring you bearded
iris,
camellias, cherry blossom stems.
You
dangle a daisy within the baby’s
grasp,
pull it back when he opens
his
mouth. On a drive to the Pinnacles,
you
and the baby doze as I bank
through
flush green hills, wake
when
the car comes to a stop. You
lead
us to the overlook, hunched
against
your bones, sculpted and brittle
as
these spires of volcanic rock.
The
baby fussy in the baking heat,
you
fill the plastic wading pool.
He
laughs at the blue duck you inflate,
lifts
the corners of your eyes as I
cannot.
Weeks later, after you’ve
died
and been buried with our long
dead
father, as my siblings and I divide
your
furniture, dishes, knick-knacks
and
plants, bicker over your car,
it’s
that blue duck that I covet
with
your breath still inside.
Mary Petrosky