Suddenly my mother has grown old.

I can't keep up with the dust, she said.

I can't do as much. I can't sleep.

I don't do enough to get tired enough.

She has sewn clothes all her life. She created clothes for me out of her head.
Her knotted fingers fumble now. She shakes her head at the price of clothes
and sews clothes that don't turn out quite right.

She gets angry, so angry my mother-who-never-threw-anything
throws potholders at my father and cries from guilt.
I shouldn't complain to you, says my mother-who-never-complained.

She reads books until her eyes close. She takes walks and rests
in the afternoon sun in a room of her own.
She gets up to get something she can't remember,
my mother-who-never-forgot.

With gnarled fingers, she makes music on the piano
before she makes my father dinner.
She serves herself baby food
which is all she can eat.

I call her in the night where she can't sleep,

          in the dark nightpool where she can't swim,

                                            where she is drowning,

I call out to her, to her spirit which is breaking.

She's going to where I can't reach her.