Marc D. Goldfinger

Photo by Janice Raynor

My Mother Sits

in the next room creating
her own reality, no one can tell
her different, my father is out
at the pool with his new
girlfriend, they relate to each other
very well, my mother isn’t dead
yet, she says she’ll be gone soon, I sit
in the next room wondering
whether to take an aspirin
or a Vicodan with a Valium chaser,

my mother says

she will go out to the pool
for a swim but not
today, she says

she can go anytime and is always
at the pool, my aunt tells me she has
not gone out to the pool
for a year, my mother sits and rocks, looks
out the window, she doesn’t turn
on the tv or read a magazine, she says

she will go to the pool
soon, her sister tries to get
her to go out to the pool, my mother
won’t budge, her sister says,
“Dora, you are a fuck,” my mother says,

“Don’t use that language
in front of my son.” My mother
turns away, looks out the window, begins
to rock, my father is out at the pool
with his girlfriend,

my mother isn’t dead yet.