My mother’s leathery face and

Caved in lips, sans teeth or denture

The broken arm in plaster rubbing

The side of the left breast once fed me

But now turned septic. Her three months

In the hospital had got her life back

To be snatched away anytime;

Death was on the prowl we knew.

She who was so full of life and hope

Suddenly turned to me one day and said:

‘Why should I live on? My time is gone.

Let me go now. Don’t worry about me.’

There was a blank listlessness about her

Eyes and lips.

In her last stint in the hospital

When she went in and out of

Cubicles of consciousness

Her roving eyes could not see

The reassurance her son sought

To bring, the security of wellbeing—

Only blankness, blankness.