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‘September’ Strauss played loud so she hears it in her room
Her chin, butter-grubby from the scrambled egg that now slips from her spoon
Onto her blanket and chicken-thin skin bruised legs bare nightie, tissues and crumpled bag Her barely-slippered feet in white warm socks, sits a body so limp, so lost, so sad
so graceless
This silken shadow of my mother Gurgles and froths like a greedy toddler Stretching her lips, her tongue, her teeth She pain-pours away her breathless grief and grace
Not with self-pity at her sickness Her self-silence, her self-stillness
But the music, this Strauss, his September Smothering her in the saddest joy to remember Her voice and her mother’s voice singing Strauss restoring grace.
November 10, 2014