How Did My Sister Bear This
Mother's hair is whiter than it was a month ago,
her smile is gone; she has aged a hundred years
in thirty days, I do not recognize her.
vibrancy and enthusiasm have dissipated
She cannot sit up, swallow or talk.
I think I’ll know when it is time to let her go.
I hold her hand, it is not freezer cold, but close
a tiny little thing; there is no flicker of the eyes
she is making guttural noises that sound painful.
I look at the clock. I have been here forty-seven minutes.
I cannot bear to be here much longer.
I won’t need words to let her know I am going. She will not care.
My sister comes, and we hold a vigil.
She is loud and happy, glad to see me.
Flitting about in this cramped tiny ugly horrible room.
I am demanding morphine, the nurse hates me and she shows it.
I want this to be over.
Then night draws a veil over the window. All we hear is a death rattle.
I do not know how my sister bears it.
She has watched mother deteriorate into a corpse of herself daily.
I yell for the nurse, but there is still time to hurt ourselves, watching.
Mother's eyes flicker. Clock ticks, accusingly, knowing my thoughts.
Morphine is given. She is finally released from this cancerous body.
We are together, my sister and I, orphans now
Copyright © Caren Krutsinger | Year Posted 2021
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