Death Is Something Entirely Else

Department of Trance

Department of Dream of Levitation

Department of White Fathom

Department of Winding

Sometimes my son orders me lie down

I like when he orders me lie down close your eyes

Department of Paper Laid Gentry

Department of Sound of Sheets of Paper

he covers me with

then sings

I like best the smallest sounds he makes then

Department of This Won’t Sting

Am I slipping away

Department of Violet Static

as if he were a distant station

Department of Satellite

My child says you sleep

Department of Infinitely Flexible Web

and covers my face with blankness

Department of Tap-Tapping the Vein

Department of Eyelash

I can’t speak

or even blink

or the page laid over my face will fall

Department of Clear Tape in Whorls and Double Helixes on the Wall

He says Mama don’t look

Department of You Won’t Feel a Thing

I cannot behold

Department of Pinprick

He will not behold

Department of Veils and Chimes

of Lungs Afloat in Ether

I like this best

Department of Spider Vein

when I am most like dead

and being with him then, Department of Notes

Struck from Thin Glasses Successively at Random

I must explain to my child that sleep

is not the same as dead

Department of Borderlessness

so that he may not be afraid of

Department of Fingertips Lightly on Eyelids

so I can lie and listen

not holding not carrying not working

Department of Becalmed faint sound of him

I am gone

His song is the door back to the room

I am composed of the notes

Source: All You Do Is Perceive (Four Way Books, 2013)

Poems About Motherhood