Seeing my mother

curled in on herself

like a spiral shell

on a bed with a metal side-rail

was like hearing the high wail

of a far-off ambulance

late at night, its keening

faint yet persistent.

The rise and fall

of her chest barely visible,

her body’s memory seemed

to beckon her back to a womb,

but that icy hospital room

was a poor replica

of the warm, dark safety

of her first home.

I spoke to her,

hoping she would wake,

but she was wandering

dream-meadows, elsewhere.

Bereft, I could only stare

at her spindle-thin legs,

her pale skin translucent

as rice paper.

I took it all in:

the stark white sheets,

the fetal curl, the fragile bones,

the shallow breath.

The shadow of death,

I realized, had begun to edge

across the late afternoon

of her remaining days.                                                                       

In that moment                                                                       

I grasped the meaning

of the phrase I’d often heard.

Her body might, for a time, uncurl,

but all too soon she’d furl

her bird-like limbs for good,

fold her gnarled hands, let go

a last, regretful sigh.