We are here.
At the foot of your bed,
I warm your limp feet in my hands.
A daughter cleans your mouth, a thirsty anemone.
Your only action is its eager suckle
of the sponge. My sister’s
offering is careful, sparse—
your retiring body can take little but air.
When that’s a challenge, my other sister
suctions your lungs, with awesome expertise.
She holds her breath.
It’s an old nurses’ trick, she says: “When
we need air, we know the patient needs a break, too.”
You receive her also, without struggle.
As quiet as the land,
you accept our final invasions—we
three who fed from you, climbed on you, kicked you
in the heart.
We are here.
You who made us, lie like a woman
we sisters built of sand. You are a part-time breather
now as, for days, you try out that stillness
that will soon overtake you.
I count thirty seconds of
silence
Then it starts again:
small waves of breath from far
away, lapping, lapping, building up to a breaker,
fading away
toward that far shore.
Again, silence.
Soon, the vessel of your breath
will sink below that horizon, never to return.
But we are all here, tonight.
Getting old now too, your daughters stay,
take turns, one on each side holding a hand,
heads resting on your bed.
The third sleeps on a nearby couch.
Then, as the window flickers
from indigo night to rosy autumn day, we rise.
“Another beautiful day, Mom,” we
announce, to your silence.
Oceanic night subsiding,
the season you love crisps auburn and gold
on the other side of the glass.
Still we are here, still together.
One’s head rolls sleepily on your shoulder.
Carrying three coffees, I watch the
other, wet-eyed, gaze at you.
We listen
to your inhalations, your exhalations.
While you breathe, we
are all here.
Together.
5 thoughts on “We Are Here”
Beautiful.
Thank you for sharing this Incredible poem. For me, too, it took me right back to the hospital rooms where I (an only child), spent last days with my grandmother, my father, and then my mother.
Beautiful poem, captures the experience so well.
Brought me right back to my own experience You captured it so poignantly.
What a stunning poem! It transported me to my final moments with my mom and dad. It touched my soul.