Cremation in Mexico
Our father, lying face-up in his linen jacket and good pants
on the black rubber assembly-line conveyer belt
that was jerking toward the furnace in this outdoor industrial yard
on the outskirts of the city—where who knows what
was disposed of—no plush chairs, background music or
undertaker nodding solemn in his suit but only this gravel
ground and a conveyer belt so narrow our father barely fit—
and as it moved his body slipped—
my sister and I screaming, hiding our eyes from this horror
while my brother ran, lifted him, placed him, straightened him
so he might ride dignified into his fire.
My Mother’s Mother’s Photograph
I
My sister hung the photograph of my mother’s mother
on the wall at the foot of my mother’s bed—
so that, lying there on the narrow mattress—
no headboard, in that plain room—she could see it—
her mother, that is: open her eyes in the morning,
afternoon, evening, and during the long dark nights,
find her comforting mother—as if she were a child again,
back in her long-gone bedroom—now the one
in this home where uniformed aides go in and out. . . .
This picture of a slim, pretty woman, curls,
small smile, and a buttoned flowered dress—
younger than my mother was at that time—
younger than I am now. My mother shook her head.
I don’t want to see her, she said.
I was a bad daughter, she said.
But, somehow, the picture stayed—
though turned away to face the wall. And so
my mother saw, from her bed, that flat stapled-paper backing,
faceless in its black frame.
II
I remember only one visit from my mother’s mother.
She stayed that time in my brother’s room,
where the windows looked out on the street.
There I stopped in the open doorway—
she was standing at the window—and I watched,
a child not daring to interrupt a grownup,
and wondering about this old woman
I should have known . . .
my grandmother. . . .
She never moved—just stood, looking
at cars passing, at people going places—
or at nothing at all—maybe a wall—
her back turned, facing away.
