---

John Cornwall

Mother's Death Bed

I watched the smile
on your mouth vanish
as it never had done before.
It was 12 o' clock,
a time for sleeping
for those with tired
eyes waiting for courtly

words of affection.
Nothing matters for the moment,
too rich a loss to establish damage.
Now the moon has lost her consequence,
the night is old and empty but without
pain, without the resource of mechanical aid.
What has gone this evening is terrible,

harming the sinews of the living
without asking.
You have been kind to us, allowing
us seventy years of pleasure,
nothing missing, always the good
summoned from somewhere,
the wide smile of pleasure present.

Now it is time for farewells.
I look at you gone but seeming
the same, your face freshly
made over, your clothes
your favorite and all the while
your eyes closed as if dozing
with no particular reason in mind.