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?
We’re glad he’s opened up. It’s good to see
him acting genuine (authentic, too).
As vulnerably as he recently
behaves, the tendency to overdo
is not surprising. Still, the snits he threw,
protective of his weekly shopping list,
were off-the-wall emotional. The stew
was served. That avocado won’t be missed.
I thought I knew the plans for several days
ahead, but recent circumstances threw
a curve I can’t avoid, to skew my ways.
I thought I knew.
I’ll travel home. The acts that then ensue
depend on what a hospital conveys.
Already I detect a different view
of Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, with displays
of alternate environments. I’ll do
what needs, with turn of mind to reappraise.
I thought I knew.
My resolutions tend to flow top-down,
but this snuck up and now surprises me.
What bubbles from my belly to my crown,
and there takes root and grows emphatically,
is wishful learning from proximity.
I will receipt from neither film nor book.
A fact from someone whom today I see,
is what I listen for, and where I look.
I seldom catch a ride above the bay.
My normal route is underneath, on BART.
But recently, I rode the bridge. The day
was bright and as the sun began to start
to sink among a planar cloud array,
the solar underlighting mimicked smart
design of UFO, it seemed to me,
that’s poorly caught in this photography.
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