Mom was up all night
drinking and wandering,
shouting at cars,
shouting at jet-trails,
and shouting at singlewides
in the trailer park next door.
After a while,
she shouted at nothing,
her voice a weak murmur
that lulled me to sleep.
I woke to the sun
flickering through cracks
in the roller shade.
Getting dressed,
I repacked my things,
thinking I’d thank Mom
for asking me to visit,
that it had been a long time
since I’d seen her,
since she had left
me and Dad.
She wasn’t in
the living room.
She wasn’t in
her bedroom.
I went to the kitchen
and she wasn’t there either,
so I shooed flies
from dirty dishes
and a bunny planter
filled with fake flowers,
as I stood and ate cornflakes
from the box.
“’Bout time you got up.”
Mom’s voice drifted
through the screen door.
She was outside,
hunched on the stoop,
blowing blue-gray smoke
at the trees.
“Fix yourself
some coffee,” she said.
I got what I need.”
Mom raised a bottle
of Jim Beam,
then stretched her T-shirt
over her bare knees.
“The sun’s awful
today,” she said.
“It’s killing my head.”
I set the cereal aside
and went to sit next to her.
She wouldn’t scooch over
so I hung one leg
over the concrete steps,
my foot crushing the stems
of dead, stripped weeds.
“This sun,” she said.
“Why can it just
cloud up and rain?”
I said I was glad
the sun was out,
that it was hard
to ride my bike
back home
in the rain.
“Ask your dad to buy
you a car then,” she said.
“Cheap bastard.”
Mom butted her cigarette.
The embers smoldered
as she coughed
and spit up phlegm.
“Jesus Christ,” she said.
“I got to go in,
lie down a bit.”
She started to stand,
then grabbed my arm
when she toppled.
“Christ almighty,” she said.
“It’s this god-damn sun.”
Mom leaned against me
as we went in,
her bare feet sticking
to the kitchen floor.
“You’re a good girl,” she said.
“I know I didn’t say that much.”
I opened the door
to her dim dank room
and lowered her onto
her unmade bed.
She collapsed sideways
and shivered
as I set her bottle
of Jim Beam
on a plastic milk crate.
“Cover me up,” she said.
“I’m so cold now.”
Lifting her gray legs
onto the mattress,
I eased a wrinkled sheet
over her bare filthy feet,
up to her chest.
“Such a good girl.”
Deeply sighing,
Mom closed her eyes
and trembled.
“I’m so cold,” she said,
and leaning down
to kiss her,
I took her
veiny hands in mine,
trying to quiet her,
at least just a little
before I left.
