Photos of My Dying Mother

I circled her death bed before the fact while she was
A semi-lucid incident on a hazy Florida morning.
Tri-x 400 and some color and I stood on chairs and
I angled down low and I wished she could talk
Instead of just ly there on morphine smiling
Like the baby when she was pleasing the nuns
In Montreal with perfect penmanship and work ethic.
In a few days I would kiss her cold forehead.
Her bilingualism gone wasted,
The cadence of the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps
Something I would have chanted
Had only I followed her lead.