A Few Minutes Past Nine

1.

He woke naturally to the slow, much-alike
mornings.  Bed-rails chroming brighter at dawn.
Room-lamps paling.  Windows sluggishly filling
with light.  Now his fourth week of manning
the five-to-noon shift since arriving
from the East Coast.  Now the old house again
imperceptibly coming to life
as he fulfilled promises made to her
and to himself: he would stay to the end;
he would feel whatever there was to feel;
he would remember how death came for her.  

2.

So he had prepared, opening himself morning
after morning to the possible hour,
to the appearance and recognition
whenever it came.  It came without warning
that Tuesday.  First felt as a quickening,
then as an exquisite intimacy,
a solemn concentration entering
her bedroom.  He felt joined by it.  Joined to it. 
Pictures on walls loomed closer.  Her vasolined
lips parted as if to speak, though she was days
now beyond speech.  Her brow smoothed.  Her breath
dwindled, lulled.  Or what he thought was a lull.   
Then it happened.  A few minutes after nine.   
No other breath.  Only a final flutter
as flesh sank at the folds of her neck,  
his mother’s delicate parting move. 

3.

He wasn’t disappointed.  This wasn’t
an occasion for disappointment.  Yet
he’d hoped for more.  Selfishly, he’d wanted
a last sign or gesture.   Or more grandly,
more beautifully, he’d hoped to witness
as in a dream or poem, bright soul released
from worn body.  Was it so wrong, his longing
at the last for her imperishable self,
the spirit he’d known his whole life by way
of feeling?  Why not show herself plainly
in a last dance before vanishing? 
But as it happened he sensed no presence,
no release or escape, no confirmation
of his mother’s faith.  Nothing to console
beyond a dry sense of accomplishment,
that the last task they’d ever conceive
and together carry out was achieved.

4.

Her mouth had fallen open.  Standing over her,
he saw a gray, fissured tongue, yellowed teeth. 
His hands reached to close the mouth, held it closed. . .
as days before a nurse had suggested,
whispering,  Before rigor sets in.
Her chin felt warm.  And either from that touch
or his letting go, a greater feeling rose. 
Not mourning or sorrow.  Not spiking grief. 
But a child-like sense of discovery, 
an excitement, as if truth’s long-hidden shape 
had been thrillingly revealed.  It was so simple. 
She had loved him.  He’d loved her.  So obvious. 
Yet suddenly amazing.  She was gone. 
He remained.  Also amazing.  He longed
to speak, to summon right and perfect words
for unexpected joy.  Why be sorry?
She’d lived her life.  Now was dead.  Forever
and always dead.  She was complete and he was glad.  

5.

Soundlessly a digit on her bedside clock
changed.  He caught sight of the movement, noted
the time, as a nurse had also instructed. 
From an open jar of skin cream on the bureau
a familiar fragrance.  And gradually
in the spare morning light his exaltation
drained.  What to do now?  Whom must he call? 
But he remained in his chair, registering
bed-blanket drape, the body’s absolute
stillness.  He grew aware of an unfamiliar
silence—the stitch, stitch, unspooling thread
of a particular silence—then rising
in him, mixing with the quiet moment,
a memory of the ancient camellia bush
outside her bedroom window where now—
just as some fifty years before when
she’d call him to witness the eerie hoverings—
a hummingbird fed on scarlet flowers.