I Buried My Mother Today
Long overdue, but no less difficult
By: Loukia Borrell
Dreich
2021
I buried my mother today
The weather was nice,
Sunny and warm for November
There were just seven of us,
Weeping into thin tissues
Staring at the coffin and vault.
A few days before, I asked for
A private viewing. Her gray hair
Was combed back, thin fingers looked
Like pieces of chalk, resting
Over her belly, a blue jar of her
son’s ashes by her shoulder.
I lifted her flannel nightgown
To eye the breasts, that once
Fed me, cradled against her,
Gulping down her mother’s milk,
They had vanished with her,
Leaving only pink nipples flat
On her chest, and she was a
Child again, a little girl, and
I was so much older than she.
