letter to liz, on my mother's clothes

today i saw a pair of socks on the couch at my dad's house that belong to my mom. they're halloween socks. i used to borrow them for school, on holidays, pick a pair of her festive socks. like in elementary school, you know, socks with bats, socks with santa.
she has a lot of festive socks, and a lot of pajamas.

i think i'm going to make a quilt from all her christmas pajamas. and mine. she really likes christmas. holidays in general. she gets really creative and likes to make a lot of things around the holidays, likes giving lots of presents, especially pajamas. it makes sense that i'd have a quilt of her pajamas. i found a hospital gown in her room last night and i wore it around while i went through her clothes.

but the socks. i saw them, and even though she hasn't died, it felt like that. because she won't wear those socks anymore, or any, or christmas pajamas, she doesn't say "hey kiddo" or "hey kidney" or "there's my arielley"

she doesn't really say anything. she moans, so i hold her hand, which feels especially soft but cold. i don't think she really notices. she eventually tells sherry she wants to move to the other bed, and this is all she says.

the other day after we talked i went in there and sat with her while she slept and i got so upset crying that i purposefully woke her up so she could comfort me, and she did. she had to really push the words out, that she loved me, and that she knows that i loved her, maybe this is the last thing she'll ever say to me. and that day when she was up all day, just talking and i couldn't stay awake, really, i asked her if i could have the little stove, and she said "of course", maybe that was the last day she was really alive.

she wears less and less clothes, and i find these things around: one day her bag, one day a jacket, one day her socks,
are like a little trail of presents, but i'm really just loosing more pieces of her everyday. her words, her consciousness, the mass of her body, her affectionate gestures, her color, her breath, and soon her heartbeat. she'll wander off, leaving a trail i can't follow that ends with the only clothes she still wears. and then i'll have her nightgowns, too, but it's not a fair trade.

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

This is really good. I've been ripping around today telling poets what they "really" are, being snide, rude and myself (unveiled). But, this is really good. I hope it's fiction. I hope you made it up out of whole cloth, a lie from start to finish. Then you'd be really, really good, and I don't use adverbs lightly, ask anybody. Even so, even if it's only truth, it's really good.