Eric Ashford Poet Free verse

A Mother Fades Goodbye

Sometime before I was old enough
to be this vessel of seawater reflections
          she began to dissolve.
Husband dead, son revolving
around one woman after another.

I did not notice
the ebb, how her eyes lost care
        or interest,
how her housecoat insulated her from
what she once loved in her slipshod way.

When she looked at me it was through a tunnel
she had dug for her mind,
her presence wrapped in muffling blankets
as if it were now
                        always too cold to surface.

I should have seen the signs,
seen the slow disappearance, the pale waning
        but by then I only visited
through the narrow gaps of my life.

I told her to join something,
do what other old people did...
        only now do I really know
what old people can do,

they recall and piece together,
reflect through a seawater haze
            those moments
when seams began to unravel,
falling quietly apart
                  before closed eyes.

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L Milton Hankins March 21, 2021 at 9:42 AM Another winner! I think your mother is a metaphor for those of us who are aging. I think sometimes we neglect hygiene because we don't want to waste a minute of our remaining life in mundane tasks. Good stuff!