the room in which they’ve put her hospice bed
brims with whispered talk of Christ  a cross
adorned with gaudy plastic beads glitters
above the fireplace   her husbands reads
the Bible and tugs my arm to say
she loves this verse   his eyes are red and bulge
with cowboy gospel songs   she doesn’t budge
except to mutter water  to scratch her eye

i know this is her last transfiguration
i know the harp that is her collapsing mouth
is tuned to keys the living cannot fathom
her song is no longer mother    but something else

in life  she never asked me once to pray
in death   i blink and don’t know what to say

– Connor Simons