Sundown

My mom talks to the dead

she’s in a place where she keeps company with the departed  

she used to go there when the sun goes down 

now she sits spells there most of her “waking” day 

My mom speaks to me through others 

she used the same words spoken by last week’s stranger on yesterday’s phone call 

like a dream

she’s stuck 

between this world and that 

limbo 

waves

her body plays out the past 

memories metastasized in her organs, muscles and tissues

they left blocks 

It scares me 

I don’t want a future in that place

purgatory 

My mom doesn’t know if I’m friend or foe 

My mom looks at me and does not know who I am 

My mom is angry and scared 

she sees things coming for her 

things that are not there 

but when she talks to me through the living she is not scared 

when my mom talks to me through the living she remembers who I am 

she is so proud and happy for me  

“i want you to keep going” 

My mom talks to the living through a dream

I think about the mercy we show our animals and the suffering we allow our people 

My mom is alive in that dead world 

a world I know parts of me are in or are from too 

My mom is not herself

her 

self 

My mom is my mom in the dead place

Sun up through Sundown my mom sits in her room and talks to the dead 

I wish the parts of her that remain would leave this world of the “living”