Good Mommy

You can't prepare for this:
the DNR in red letters,
last rites over,
the monitors off,
the harsh fluorescent lights,
the curtains drawn,
and the bed rail down
because there is no place left
for your mother to fall.

And then you see her,
one eye half open,
her hands clawed like eagle talons,
her dry lips form an O of surprise,
and the tangled blue diamonds
of her hospital gown.

You reach for her,
bury your face
in the wing of her collarbone,
caress her cool cheeks,
then run your hands
down the rough cotton blanket,
feel how small she is.

Your chest is tight and aches;
this is what heart break
feels like, and now
you know.

You hear a rustle,
a young nurse presses
tissues and a phone
into your shaking hands,
ring ring ring ring,
but it's rush hour
and no one's home, yet.

You sit down so the nurse
can close your mother's eyes
and fold her hands on her chest,
while you stare at the table,
her dentures, her silver eyeglasses,
and the thick novel you brought
because she was supposed to live
through this night,
and the next.

You have some time
to straighten her matted wig,
brush some pink blush
on her waxy cheeks,
rub vanilla gloss
on her chapped lips,
spray her wrists
with sweet lavender cologne.

You remember
how much she liked cheap beer,
long cigarettes, and television,
how she knit you a white sweater
with three black kittens
for the first day of school,
how she got drunk one night
and called you a tramp.

You regret telling her
to go straight to hell,
because you know
she had a hard time
raising three kids alone,
Besides, fourteen years
of bone cancer
was hell enough.

You drag your chair to the bed,
wipe the hot tears from your face,
rub her stick thin legs,
and whisper,
'You were a good mommy,'
the same words
you will write on a slip of paper
and tuck behind the crepe pillow,
just before they close her casket.