Why is life so attracted to death?  Why must it cling to your shirtsleeves like a lost child whose fearful eyes beg that you reunite her with her parents.  Why must it reveal itself, like a desirous little poltergeist murmuring warmth, breath and the beat of a pulse in the presence of the bereaved?  Can we only think of death as the absence of life?  Is death a vacuum that life, like the angel of all that’s good seeks to fill.  

How was I supposed to grieve my mother’s death when I was constantly reminded of her life?  How was I supposed to forget her affection, when I held her warm freshly minted death certificate in my hand?  The official record stated that her city of death was Houston, Texas.  The city of her birth was Lamesa, Texas.  The morning sun hung over me like a surgical light.  The ink was still drying from the imprint of the fifty eight years between those two cities.  The amniotic Springtime dew had just begun evaporating off the breath of bluebonnets, buttercups and Indian paintbrushes.  The traffic of cars pulsed with the beat of the city as it greeted this newborn day.   There was no song in that azure sky. 

     “As you were.  As you were.”

 

She heaved with horrible moans as I stood by helplessly watching her.  Her cries were like the screams of a woman giving birth, but in reverse. 

Removing the dolls.  The witch like sheikha.  Cutting the bracelets.  I killed my mother like a defoliant kills a plant.

I stood somewhere between Mystery and Suspense. The aisles of book shelves were brooding reminders of