I Was Only A Little Sad When You Died
For most of it, my eyes were dry and I was only a little sad.
I didn't cry when the nurse called to say your vitals changed.
Or when she called back a few hours later to say you died.
I didn't cry when I called the funeral home, or later when
I arrived to see you dead for the first time, at last, lifeless.
You seemed small on the table, thin, fragile, like a little girl.Yet, I knew together we filled the bright room with hard bitterness.
We were not together to comfort each other, because there was
no grief or longing between us. You wanted to go, so go.
I wanted it, too, for both of us and as elongated shadows
covered us, I did not try to sit closer to you, to make anything
right or say I love you. I studied your still chest, the one that
nursed me and heaved with anger in my presence.I could not cry because I sat there, legs crossed, remembering
our broken history, and even in this still room, I could hear you
reminding me I know nothing about being a mother,
bragging to your friends that you had to teach me everything,
that I am careless with myself and others, my apple pie is
nothing more than a mouthful of sugar, and I imagine you urged
women my age to corral their husbands because I am fond of married men.Years later, on an afternoon in October, I sat with your pink,
satin glove box in my lap and felt something softer.
Inside the box, there was a neat pile of your gloves, delicate
things with bows, ruffles and tiny beads. Most of them are
white and ivory, and under those a black pair, and at the
very bottom, my own childhood gloves with tiny
blue and yellow flowers. I remember wearing them to church,
our gloved hands holding onto each other, many years
before something terrible attached itself to us.
