“As the earth grows too crowded
we all have to take our turns
at leaving, to make space for others.”

We were up in my mother’s and father’s room
my sister, myself and my mother
one day early in my childhood
when we asked her to explain
the why of death
and that was what she said.

I remember the soft blue curtains,
through which we looked out
over our street, far below
as we touched our mother’s skirt
for attention, and were calmed by
the matter-of- factness in her tone
of voice.

I don’t remember the trigger for
the query; no fresh family or neighborhood tragedy
just one of those fact-of-life- question moments
one of us must have started,

but I remember afterward
imagining the world as a huge spinning ball
on which where we all scrambling to keep our balance
for dread of falling or being pushed off the edge
by the sheer numbers of people
around us.

It seemed to me
there had to be a fairer way
to accomodate everyone without
such dramatic goings-on.

But her words sufficed for a while
in that appeasing way that
the simplest, briefest responses
to our questions about sex, worked too,
at first,
though later just baited our minds for
further investigation.

The death answer fit smoothly
into those years
of lining-up in the schoolyard, learning
not to dare butt in, and the important hierarchy of
who was (t)here first,
though death seemed
sort of a backward way to honour
the first-come, first serve.

Now all these years later
up in that same room
in the same house
where our mother now sleeps alone,
yesterday my sister and I together
took on the task
of confirming to her
death’s imminence
for her son-in-law.

We had no simple explanations
no matter-of-factness to the logistics
and though after we left
she lay down, tired
in the soft blueness of night,
sleep could not come easily to her
even knowing the world would see fit
to keep spinning, after
making a little
more space.

01/11/2005

Posted on 01/12/2005
Copyright © 2025 Maureen Glaude