Wet skin
My mother doesn’t think she’s dying,
but she’s in the ER for the third time
in less than three months while
I’m 2,500 miles away on an island
in the middle of the sea, my sister
sitting with our shrinking mother
Alive
40 years ago
the night before Halloween
they let me into the frigid room
where they were keeping you
deeply sedated, your skin blue
and clammy, barely alive after
having trouble bringing you back,
with a wicked incision stitched
from collarbone to near navel