The past continues to
Breathe in me.

Occasionally it is kind,
Tho often it finds me
Breathless.

I glance back and small details
Come alive, with strange power to wound me
Yet again.

How can sunlight in my childhood living room
Continue to light up dead goldfish
Floating in the fish tank?

How can the fire escape
Leading to my bedroom
Continue to terrify me in the night?

My father’s Pekingese
Still lies dying curbside
That time when I was 3.

I still hide underneath
My mother’s baby-grand piano,
But do get dragged out anyway….

(I was never much good at hiding).

Now,
At almost 80,
Sitting breathless in my chair

This new left leg pain
Has made me
Terrified to move,

And now …. I’m present
With my mother,
Much younger then
Than I am now,

Her transcendence lost,
Made powerless
By her own left leg pain
That slowly led to death.