My mother’s heart could not
Would not
Beat the way it was supposed to
They had shocked her several times
More than a couple times
Trying to get things back in order
But it was not going to happen
So they put her in a coma
They shut just about everything down
That wasn’t shutting down already
To let her body get back into sinus [...]
The waiting room was crowded
With relative of all kinds
The ones I liked
The ones I didn’t
And we sat there together
Waiting for word
She was in surgery again
The third time in three days I was told
They were taking out her left colon
Sitting there
Things didn’t seem quite as bad
Surgery was better
Than nothing to do but wait
And the doctor nicely [...]
I wasn’t sure if it was the phone
Cutting in and out
Or my father
Unable to complete a sentence
But I knew
It took me three minutes
To get out of the building
Into my car
And onto I-10
For the long blank space
Between Phoenix and Tucson
It my mind it was already over
She would be gone before I got there
I felt it
I expected [...]
My mother danced at my sister’s wedding
Probably the first time
In a long time
We aren’t a family of dancers
Someone took a picture
And it stuck around
In her hospital room
For a long time
They put off the surgery
Until after the wedding
On purpose
And I don’t know
If that was good or bad planning
Considering what came after
I went by the house the [...]
