Florin Lacatus Poet Free verse

You are still here

Mom is still alive.
I have to tell myself this sometimes,
like a sentence held in the air
between what I know
and what I refuse to name.

Because the mind has already begun
to arrange things
without asking her.

Today I called her.

She picked up.

You don't understand that gesture
until it starts
coming less often.

And each time
becomes proof
that won't hold much longer.

She speaks more slowly now.

Not from exhaustion alone,
though the exhaustion is there,
but from a kind of economy
that life imposes on itself
when it no longer has time.

As if words
had to be carried
from one room to another
without sound.

I watched her the other day.

She was sitting in the armchair
looking out the window.

The same old gesture,
repeated without explanation:
the light, the glass, the silence.

I didn't ask anything.

I was afraid
of a simple answer
I wouldn't know where to put
afterward.

Her chipped mug is on the table.

She still uses it.

She still drinks her coffee in the morning,
less often, more slowly,
but she still drinks it.

And I look at it
and think
that one day
it will stay there
without anyone needing it.

And that thought
doesn't stop.

She asks if I've eaten.

She still asks.

With a voice that carries
more care than strength.

And she asks me
if I've eaten
as if that could still fix something.

I don't know how to stand beside this.

I don't know how to move
through what's coming.

She says my name.

She says it the same way.

And I receive it
like a fragile object
I don't know where to place.

I try to keep its sound,
the exact place of her voice,
the way it breaks a little at the end.

As if it could be saved.

But it can't.

I know.

I keep trying.

Her coat is by the door.

I see it every time.

It was always there
and only now does it truly exist.

If it stays there,
it's as if she stays too.

And I know that's not how it works,
but I leave it there.

There are moments when she laughs.

She laughs briefly,
at small things,
without weight.

And then she is just my mother.

And I laugh with her
for a few seconds
when nothing else can be felt.

After that
comes the silence.

At night the questions come
that I haven't asked.

Not for lack of time.

Something else.

Postponement.

And I wonder if there's still time
or just the habit of time.

And I fall asleep without choosing.

Mom is still alive.

This morning she drank her coffee.
She sat by the window.
She asked if I'd eaten.

That was the day.
And everything fit inside it.

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