I’m zoning out of late, on couch and chair,
adrift in dream for moments, out of bed,
replaying voices from Intensive Care,
acknowledging delirium instead
of dialogue that’s accurate and spare.
I’m carting crazed affection in my head.
It’s not unpleasant and it’s feeling apt.
I like this harkening from when I’ve napped.
She made my day, I murmured as I turned.
I know the stranger heard me anyway.
She’d volunteered a comment and I learned
she made my day.
She spoke. I thanked. And she went on to say,
“It’s easy when it’s true.” I’m not concerned
with fact, but feeling bubbled in her sway.
I wondered if the compliment was earned.
For days the mirror showed my aspect gray.
But with her words unsettled gloom adjourned.
She made my day.
I do not miss the nightly calls, although
the feeling that the evening’s not my own
until we speak may take some time to go.
But what I learned, amazingly unknown
until I spoke of her, what dawned to grow –
in me her tales and memories were sown.
Unearned, because I’m oldest and female,
my mother told what I can now retail.
Within three days we put her in the earth.
The mortuary helped, but overall
we worked together. She who gave us birth
was lowered to her husband’s side. No fall
from grace was felt, no tumult to recall –
a fairly perfect rite was rightly done.
Fifteen descendants came, and alcohol
was poured and shared by daughter, son, and son.
So many prophecies – all incorrect.
“When you mature you’ll want to drive, to shop.”
I don’t know why my intimates expect
my rational reluctances to stop.
I study me and cannot recollect
occasions when I registered a drop
in my aversions. So they say I’ll grieve
an absence, still impelled to disbelieve.
Her life was long, and satisfying too.
She lost her mom too soon but didn’t set
that fate upon us offspring – we’d the view
and words till elderly ourselves. She met
her end in morphine nap, but had five score
of years, and though she mourned our father, dead
two decades now, their love was deep and sure
(and he could not outlive those bleeds in head).
Maintaining mettle till her final week,
accomplishing each self-appointed task,
the woman’s whiplash vigor was unique,
her judgments more than anyone could ask.
Impatient to the end, she didn’t stay
in morphine’s grip beyond a single day.
Zeva S. Cohn
October 24, 1925 – January 29, 2026
“Take care of Mom,” our father said at last,
and “Funny, isn’t it, how things work out?”
It’s not that we expected those outclassed,
and true to form she was, without a doubt.
At day or so before the woman passed,
when speech remained, she had to talk about
the imperfection he should tackle now.
She drew him close and creased his loving brow.
“Let’s give the patient that,” the doctor said.
And though I hear the phrase is often used
in medicine, it swept within my head
as charming and intelligent. Excused
from every pre-planned date – on pause instead,
and not ambivalent or too confused,
we’ll macerate these moments thoroughly,
and then imbibe whatever comes to be.
I tend to pay attention when you speak,
and that’s not something that I often do,
I comment egotistically. Technique
is seldom taught me, but I’ve had a few
occasions when I don’t overtly seek
correction, but you voice a phrase or two.
I thank you, son, with deep sincerity.
Your urgent admonitions succor me.
Too late to have effect, too soon to grieve,
I move about in limbo as we wait.
Erect I stand and bend to pack to leave,
but when I land will she recuperate?
Or does descent to death precipitate,
and will she now be tethered to a line
embedded, not at home, a site she’d hate,
if she were well enough to wake to whine?
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