How Will It End

My mother understood, before she forgot

she wore hearing aids, it was time to clear

out many belongings. So many books

went to the library sale, so many clothes

to Goodwill. She read again old letters

and cards, then burned them in the pit

behind the house, out by the field,

where ashes fly safely over the stubble

or the growing corn or beans, but never

start a fire on a windy day… Now it’s time

to give away the extra pots and pans,

whatever is stored on the highest shelves,

meaning seldom used, or the tucked away

in the low cabinets, as neither of them

can climb or bend. I want to help them

but not without permission, agreement.

It’s easier with food, when I point out

the moldy bread or vegetable, the box

in the cupboard eaten by mice. Lately,

they are not setting traps—part memory

loss, part lack of dexterity. Now snow

keeps collecting in the attic, a problem

with high winds and the roof vent. Now

the ceiling might fall in on them, gently

asleep in their beds one night.

Then we’d clear away rafter and shingle

to find them stiff and white, side by side,

a white dust in their nostrils, eyes tight

shut, but perhaps still dreaming, no one

knows what it will be like, the shattering.

— Babs