Table of Contents
1
The third time my mother fell 3
Outside her window the trees 3
I bring her coffee and a bun 4
Well, let's see, my mother begins, LVS 5
In the hills above Rincon 5
The United States of America 6
And when there was nothing left 7
With the mediocre portraits 8
Remember how you wouldn't give up 9
And with her impeccable posture 10
2
We are lying in the big bed 13
Behind the filing cabinet 14
In animal darkness, before 15
I bring breakfast, balancing the tray 16
Hospice wants to interview the patient 17
Turns out Leo is one lying 18
Somewhere in New Mexico 19
The family inundates 20
How will you spend your courage 21
The tumor on my mother's liver 22
My mother says 22
3
The finest strand of deep blue yarn 25
4
This year I have disappeared 29
The hornets swarm in the diesel-filled air 30
How will you spend your courage 31
From my mother's cabin I hear them- 32
Mexico is a snake eating 33
When this is all over 33
My mother's curled up on the big bed- 34
I want to press my body 34
The mouse behind the filing cabinet 35
5
In my father's big bed 39
In my father's lab the aisles were narrow 40
In my dream my mother comes with me 41
Yes dear-I would like some wine 42
-Would you like to go to sleep now? 42
Is that MY black dog- 43
We are sitting on the side of the bed 44
My mother takes my two hands 44
Rain, and the grape sugars 45
Passing back to the house 46
At night I go for a personal best: 47
The finest strand of deep blue yarn- 48
6
My mother's every exhale is 51
On the phone, my brother Whit 51
+ /- 3 a.m 52
So we measure the morphine carefully 53
(My mother's every exhale is 53
Ben! Oh, Ben 54
Now my mother's every exhale 55
I myself do what I do best: 55
Just after seven we turned her 56
The life falls shut 56
7
The day after my mother died 59
She died on her 84th birthday 60
-The never the over the void 60
Silvia asks whether I ever feel 61
Her ashes blow off- 62
Rincon, where the Rio Grande turns 63
And the bit about the answer 64
Because elsewhere in this valley 64
In the phone photograph 65