My mother
waited up late for me
early Sunday mornings
chain-smoking cigarettes
off the pilot light,
her gas flame-blue shadow
cast across the kitchen
as I came up the back stairs
from the porch;
All the other rooms
slept.
Cigarettes burned,
all the other rooms
tossed and turned.
Darkness
never felt
so good.
In memory of my mother, Pauline-
January 30, 1944 – March 6, 2019
