Requiem

Here at this condemned Pick-n-Save,

its picture windows cracked, streaked

with bird shit or white paint, flesh-
beige tape, dried by the sun, peeling

back, my dying mother bought stacks
of cheap dishes an earthquake shattered.

Amid glass, pack rat crap, horded headlines,
she slowly fell asleep, her body withered

by neglected diabetes, me coming back late
from the sex club, her bathrobe open, ex-

posing her belly, those black, curling hairs.
Far away within the dashboard, woodwinds

fade into the brass, a sort of understated
complicated pain, the body un-

important, impotent, urban
planners having decided

to rip …