“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” Luke 2:7
I still regret that I didn't take the first flight from Chattanooga
the moment I heard about the car and the pine,
the neighbor, the helicopter ride,
and her body, broken.
They said she slept sweetly after I called,
the traffic outside lowing like cattle,
the careful sound of engines, chewing the cud,
going over their lives again and again,
unaware of the manger inside,
the rows of curtained stalls,
the long door of her white face,
and her corn-silk hair,
pressed like a weary halo onto the pillow.
I am aware.
I follow her through the many pages of her life,
each rustling like a row of November corn
left in the field too long.
There she is, cracking pine nuts between stones
while we swim in the lake with the biting beetles.
And there, wiping sugar water from the open mouths
of canning jars, apricots spiraling to the brim,
her hot, veined hands dripping,
droplets bursting on her once-white tennis shoes.
We stand on the final page.
Here, swaddled in a hospital gown,
barely lifting her arm to pen the last sentence,
she tosses the last husk of her life
into the sterile air.