I Can Remember

Death gleefully hugged her only years ago.
I can remember the existence of my mom.
I remember I loved her.
I remember the way she skipped out
of a restaurant just to give people
something
to talk about.

I can remember the fights.
I remember my mother
firing bullets from her teeth
for my teen-aged crimes.
Those bullets
strengthened me.

I can remember the music.
She

loved

music.
I sung her favorite songs,
and she would dance with
the moon.

I can remember her hospital shroud.
I remember my daughter
was too young to
remember
her.

I can remember losing her
before
truly
knowing her,
in the way a son knows his mother
after he has grown up and had a child
of his own.
I remember hellfire anger.
I screamed at the night sky
craving for it to open
and let her escape.

I can remember time
slowly crawling,
twisting sorrow’s blade.

I can remember sitting
with her purse cradled,
opened,
staring at the words
of a poem I wrote
at the age of eight,
never knowing she kept it,
never knowing where
it had journeyed.

“Love is like a rose,
covered in pain…”
it began.

I can remember tears.