Work

As if with a newborn again in the house

I rise to guide my elderly mother after her surgery
Slow slog from bed to bathroom, and back again 

From muscle spasm to dropping 
Her hands in resignation, skin pocked like aspen bark
Just a few moments of balance brings night breeze 

Three cautious steps in the dark before the pain ascends again
Up from the tightened grip of her right foot all the way
To cut buttock and wilting thigh after 
 
Posterior replacement with titanium hip, and its cry 
Unrelenting bedfellow we did not anticipate
Her groggy arthritic former piano playing hands 
 
Flutter and press against the skin, as if ironing away grimace
She wears a silver and turquoise wristwatch band which she
Refuses to take off, measuring sleeplessness

I attempt to smooth her taut face, respect spit and clench
If she’s dreaming, it’s mumbled nightmare having returned 
To temporary recline in a room of pillows and pull up bar
 
A window where a motion sensor flips on, detecting outside
Movement and the light shines at a slant into her eyes 
As the humidifier wheezes and the medicine bottles stand watch

Identified against forgetting, their names taped to the bathroom mirror
I lie down for twenty minutes on the rollaway cot that touches
The foot of her double bed, pulling on my blanket
 
And if she does finally dream of precious levity 
She cannot tell me as she claims she never slept, aching instead
For return to buoyancy, such meticulous work to walk again.