My Mother’s Death
"I did not know the necessity.
You know, I have been thinking about
this idea of education. It is terrible
when one day merges another. Last week
I lost two days. What you have to remember
is this: No matter what they look like
they are really five years old.
Some people get frustrated. I'm sorry, look for it,
In the purse with the credit cards, under the drawer
or behind the bed someplace. Brain damaged.
But I have thought about this enough today.
I will think about it some more tomorrow.
I don't know where it is."
Wrong muscles strain
Wrong muscles relax
The dying person
The face is puffed
The glands are tender
The head at a nearly right angle
from her neck
as though the neck would break
The nurse says,
"She likes to sleep like that sometimes"
These stones' clarity sharper than all regarded precious, gold and the like A river spans over the region darker than blood its coarse soil feeding vegetation rich with our colors Soothing, kinder the rays as in dawn or before rain I have seen these things I will see them The bank's coarse mud far richer with colors, delightful grain which soothes, ore more precious, more common, than gold
I brush the crumbs from my beard, my hands shook -- too many cigarettes and ale I listen hard to what is said (faded clippings or those that fade, somebody's shoes hang, two black helicopter fans don't work, the pot bellied stove works, the usual waiter serves)
In the hospital they wheel a cadaver down to the basement strapped to a stretcher wrapped in linen with a towel wrapped around the head with an opening through which no face is seen
I notice the dead illuminated buildings their sugar-glazed shadows in street light I work in a grey building Some of us are old now There is a statue on the roof, dignified and erect, overlooking Wall Street There is an antique wooden indian in the lobby I always greet the blind man who sells newspapers and drakes cakes and overcharges for everything especially soda and cigarettes which we buy to break up the day He can't differentiate the paper we hand him A blind man depends on honesty I am impressed by his skill at counting change
Some of us load trucks We have learned to look busy or have worked in the Xerox room for some time, making excellent copies Some of us drive buses or push carts full of mail from office to office We all get paid twice a month Many of us have done this for twenty years We never know until it's time to clear our desks Yet we will earn a decent salary working for this city In between work we play stupid practical jokes on each other We like these jokes, they are funny
--Hey Jerry, the next time you'll get your damn ass kicked for sure Like the time I threw this at him (He holds in his hand a piece of metal from one of the printing machines It weighs three or four pounds)
Aw, you guys give me a pain in the neck (He is partially deaf We don't like him because he always complains)
Won't you look at the boobs on that -- Shit but the best looking ones are upstairs You ever take a look at them up there? Man they're something else!
Meanwhile, our hero combs his hair in the mirror, undoes his pants to tuck his shirt in, without warning suddenly turns and flings the damn thing clear across the floor!
Magnificent
I notice, how calmly a person will sip ale A bitter young man maybe twenty or forty Maybe forty or sixty We often wear fine suits We always read the newspaper In our pockets are credit cards, an extra check just in case, and a couple of bucks to placate the muggers
They say that,
after he left her
(poor girl)
she gained seventy pounds
His fault, she says
CAUTION
This bed is for use with oxygen administering equipment
of the nasal type, mask type, and by standard 1/2 length oxygen
tents. Oxygen tent canopy should not extend below bed
spring level.
He dreams
that all things froze
So quiet
the rays serene, complex,
still,
He is not sure
he remembers those eyes
Her eyes like moving molecules of ice
kind of dead
(not quite)
She does not move yet
These dancers always pretty in their way
(even in his dream)
How gracefully she holds her head
When the nurse said she wasn't trying
to get better
she could barely move
We fired the nurse
("long skilled in techniques of comfort")
even an ignorant fat woman
Should know better than to torture the patient
Cheryl wrote:
Do you remember how we fell in love? You said my dancing was
desperate...
With her hair tied back
She'd perform a perfect somersault
awkwardly,
I'd reach for passionately
She said,
"You feel so good"
She did try to get close to me
She said,
"Why get so damned angry"
When she was angrier
She wanted to be cruel
Her own reasons
Or intentionally ugly
I don't know
Dear Cheryl, I do not remember having been in love,
desperately,
C'mon shitface -- the wallet hand it over whiteface -- the wallet
They're like us They want money to go to the movies "If you live in New York City it is often necessary to go to the movies" or so my friend from Iowa tells me
My mother with breast cancer,
said
Never think that I have not had
a good life
Then drugs such as demeral and thorazine
confused her
Once I nervously watched her
Hold an imaginary cigarette
Blowing out, she exhaled the smoke
Barely lucid
She'd make jokes
Which made it difficult to understand her
Her children
She wanted to make us feel better
She loved us
Probable metastasis to the liver
She hated death
Let me tell you the truth Insurance companies are a big rip-off. Now I'm trying to help you. Tell your brother to send us those forms. You know, I can't do a damn thing without them. What you have to understand is this (for instance, I'm bending over backwards for you now) If I help you, quite frankly (most insurance agents don't understand this) and you grow up say, and start your own corporation (this is only a hypothetical case) and you need, let's say, a company insurance plan, well you might call me in to set it up for you. That's why I'm always willing to bend over backwards for people like you -- my clients. I don't mind telling you it's not without my own self interest in mind. It's simply a matter of good business.
There ought to be dignity to grief
At which point occurs the conversation in the elevator.
He said: "Thanks man"
I said: "That's all right, you can keep them"
She said: "My mother, she gave me this beautiful dress
for Christmas"
He said: "Me, I get this undershirt"
and he points to his chest
I'm sorry but this rabbi is an ass.
"When my own father died I dug the grave myself Each shovel of dirt Singlehandedly. Then I recited the prayers According to our laws and traditions Which to me, are sacred."
Epictetus decided that
there is no pain
Only opinion
with suicide as an option
In case you forget
occasionally they will take a pot shot at an officer. usually when soldiers rebel it is not something they do outright. half-crazed in the field they will shoot anyone if permitted to if they're not told not to. enemy and civilian look alike.
These fluctuations mean nothing. For instance, last week the market dropped thirty points. My guess is that next week we can expect it rise somewhat. It is all emotional. All in all very difficult almost impossible to know the subtle connections between what actually happens in business and uneven events on Wall Street. They are, after all, very emotional on Wall Street.
Meanwhile, we sit in the limousine with this ass of a rabbi. He would not let us see the coffin lowered, which we are told is now done by machine. Old women tend to make a scene when they lower the coffin. There is to be none of that according to new policy.
"Shit! Watch it! You're going to knock over the fucking lamp." "Will someone please restrain that drunken idiot?" Outside it's twelve below Winter in Vermont with some friends People start to dance A little wine, a lot of beer Bad music I never dance Still I begin to enjoy myself in my corner drinking beer wondering if I'll be trampled on "It's noisy in here!" Two people insist on running out of the house in tee-shirts A couple more follow them No one stops them because Pneumonia is, after all, curable
You think you're smart
hiring those nurses so I'll
live longer
A girl (rather pretty) trips over the coffee table and into my lap I help her up (rather drunk) she catches her breath a little embarrassed -- not much begins to dance again "I like to use my body" she says
Someone whose name I don't remember Hands me a glass of scotch with ice From his own private stash
Some people return from outside They look all right Two girls dance trying to out do each other
We burn children there
We bring them here
Almost repair the skin
Then send them there again
In the kitchen some people are discussing Marx What he couldn't comprehend
I have found
all the hostile faces
that used to surround me
were really my good friends
learning to be witty
"I'll drink to that" Cross country skiing tomorrow A little Alka-Seltzer Some lemon (stolen from the tequila drinkers in the other room) And to bed
For a man with leukemia a hole dug carelessly meant a broken leg where he tripped with more violent swelling. What is for us an annoyance caused an infection, very dangerous for him which they could just control.
Into this kind of rain I came here To avoid you
As lovers for the time we would comfort each other in ways that I don't understand With a tension I yet feel we drew near animated beside her with each moment closer My best dreams were for her
Her breasts are formed flesh
not whiteness
There is death in her sockets
Her dulled eyes
Like ice
I remember those eyes
Half-crazed with an incomplete knowledge
There is perfection
Malignant, bitter
She said she remembers her father
That his kindness, that his failures
Are with her
I loved her
But I couldn't understand that
Certain important considerations
separated us
They were hers, she said
typed into the brain
I would like to she said
I loved her
I can't help it she said
The chemical factory is gorgeous One smokestack in the fog, particularly, With the mist that surrounds it The rain falls in parallel lines It's the middle of March and gusts Hit the mountain Brown and violet A deeper brown with the influence of rain There are evergreens also And the chemical factory Complex and innate To the side of the highway
There was thunder
The rain became snow
The windshield iced up
Driving over the bridge
There is no control
We go into a skid
Our dance macabre
I scream
We will talk about it later
"There is someone who designs guard rails
for a living..."
The coming of twilight We breathe The decent of clear night A soft rayed horizon stops me A dark river spans over the region Dried weeds that resemble wheat There is a moon reflecting sun We breathe Sweet songs that begin at random The sounds that will steadily cease
This woman though younger than myself is no less knowledgeable She knows my heart But can't comprehend the extent of my love This woman I need is a woman I love I think of you often I need you Yours are the breasts Yours is the curve of your body Our hearts are crude and tender Together, we approach for the time what is hidden
Peaceful again The city reveals that aggravated light The light that illuminates The light that tortures The usual light The same measured streets Brilliantly conceived Through solid rock Haphazardly built, destroyed, rebuilt The working machine The street light ricochets back To the walls To the river An old dark cesspool, a mirror Receives us
They tried chemistry
"Even a virus will burn itself out"
His temperature reached 105
When he recovered
Some of the doctors
Though afraid of brain damage
Thought he might live
They tried radiation
They brought in the oxygen tent
he thanked them
When pneumonia set in
They left him
When she lay in her bed
dying of her cancer
My mother said, "I miss them"
Her husband dead
(be kind, he wrote in his journal)
8 years ago, leukemia
He left her four children
Her own father dead
(once, when my younger brother entered
the room, she thought it
was her father
so much did their walks resemble each others)
Her own father dead
He took my father's death hard
Suffered anyway from heart disease
as far back as I remember
Found that he could not pay his income tax
They found him dead in his sleep
sometime later
-1973-