Portrait of a Dead Mother

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_5/Gobble.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

I thought I saw my mother

laying in the road with those death

chalk lines around her.

Some kids were kicking a ball

around her.

I heard a teenager laugh

around her.

I thought about shouting in his face

but I had to see her face,

look into her eyes

see the reflection of who

did this to my dear mother.

She was looking down

the road away from everyone,

wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Her stomach was a color

I’d never seen.

But, those pants-worn, elastic, purple-

had to be my mother’s worn, elastic,

purple pants.

I kept stepping closer

closer

closer.

A cop touched my chest

saying, “Son.”

And I yelled,

“No, I am not your son.

I am her son.”

He let go.

I gripped her cheeks

and rolled her head

towards mine.

Turns out, I saw someone else’s mother

laying in the road with those death

chalk lines around her.

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