"April is the Cruelest
Month"
for my mother
September 4, 1936 - April 21, 2008
crossing
the border
to say
with her the prayers
she taught me long ago
that day’s lapse
in memory not once
but twice:
“I am different”
and she was
a wounded deer
leaps highest
this day
the golden hour:
lucid one last time
errands,
decisions and calls
to make...
her hairdresser’s
last act of kindness
adult daughters
gather dandelions
to place
among the flowers
on her casket
re-crossing
the border
a guard
asks my destination:
the country ahead
