Doctors gaze at Mom’s CAT scan
the way astronomers look
between galaxies.
For space is mostly dark
like our old staircase
where I’d turn
by the dim-lit landing,
angling to the last step
past my brother’s closed door.
Once he didn’t make the turn,
winding up on the roof―
legs over gutters
among boughs
swaying like drunken angels.
The last day I see Mom
in the memory ward
she has forgotten him,
so I finally sign the form
withholding antibiotics,
closing a door
my brother and I
crawled through.
She stayed a year in this place
with only one floor, not taking steps
in a wheelchair. Back at the house
the stairs seem more slippery,
full of blind turns, winding
upward and outward.
For no one knows what’s beyond
roof and chimney,
leaf litter and acorns―
Here a person might sit
beside squirrels and owls,
transfixed by the vastness,
yet remaining unseen, caught
in the loose gauze
of the stars.
David Cazden’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Passages North, Nimrod, The Connecticut Review, The Shore, The McNeese Review, The New Republic and elsewhere. His third book, Kentucky Pathways, is forthcoming from Bainbridge Island Press in late 2024.
Image: cnn.com
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