Mother Wraps Herself in Silence
Sometime
before I was not mature enough to notice,
she began to dissolve.
Husband dead, son revolving
around one woman after another,
moving away from her fading presence.
Aware only of the ebb, and flow of her care
or interest, Distance surfacing in her eyes.
How her housecoat insulated her from
what she once loved.
When she looked at me it was through a tunnel
she had dug into her mind,
her presence muffled
as if it were now
always too cold to surface.
I should have seen the signs,
but by then I only visited
during narrow gaps in my life.
I told her to join something,
do what other old people did.
Only now do I understand
what old people do, -
they think of their parents
in threads and patchwork pieces.
I cannot recall the exact period
when the seam of strong bonds
began to unravel,
for of course,
that specific time was buried with her.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2025
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