Mothers & Confusions of the Mad

Some nights
I become confused.
Some nights
I do not know who
I am, who it is that I
miss more;
You? Or Her?

Some nights
I expect the phone to ring
in that hour when all but I
sleep -

That was when You
were most want
to call, to discuss
obscure philosophic questions
and check whether
I had eaten - or not.

I know You will not;
there are no phones, nor need
of them where You have gone -
I have no phone
in any case.

Still,
some nights
I get confused.

Punching letters
madly on the keyboard,
fingers desperately chasing
thoughts running through the mind
I become confused.

Some nights
I think it Her in the chair
She never saw.
Other nights I swear
You are there. Looking then;
naught but a pile
of blanket and shadow.

Sometimes,
head submerged, air
bubbling from my lungs, Joan Baez,
Jean Redpath, or some other voice
You once delighted in echoing pours
from the old Sherwood -
and I become confused -
certain You never left -
You, still here, still singing

"Hush little baby,
don't You cry..."

or

"Swing low,
sweet chariot,
coming for to carry
me home..."

Then I remember, know
that it cannot be You
I hear.

Some nights, after exhaustion
has exacted its toll and the dreams
come at last, I burst upright;
chest tense, muscles stiff, choked
in the panic of that last
night.

I become
confused.
I Remember
the fear as I raced
around the sound
to get there on time,
how deafening the silence
when that phone stopped
ringing as we passed
through the Aroma of Tacoma.

I remember
the utterly helpless feeling,
the being late;
the not being there;
and I become confused
some nights.

And most vivid
I remember sitting on your left
like one of your god's goats
holding Your hand
in that last dawn hour,
the terrible knowing
I could do nothing.

Nothing for You.
Nothing for a brother or sisters.
Nothing for myself.

I remember swearing
I would never be helpless
again. That never again
would I not be there -
I remember.

I remember
being confused.

So many things I never did
for You, for Her. So many
things I never told Her, You. You
are gone, returned to the love
of a god I never fully understood,
even when I still believed, and she
to Her life - better that way I think -
but some nights
I get confused;

Who is it I miss? Who
is it I write to? For? Her
there, You not there,
and some nights
I become confused.

Some nights
I become confused. But
confusion will never
keep me from remembering
You would have been 57
today.

Some nights
I become confused - but
confusion will never
keep me from remembering
Your birthday

Mother.

_{(KKV 08-05-1953 - 05-28-2006 :: 08-05-2010)}