Soon she will be no more than a passing thought,
a pang, a timpani of wind in the chimes, bent spoons
hung from the eaves on a first night in a new house
on a street where no dog sings, no cat visits
a neighbor cat in the middle of the street, winding
and rubbing fur against fur, throwing sparks.

Her atoms are out there, circling the earth, minus
her happiness, minus her grief, only her body's
water atoms, her hair and bone and teeth atoms,
her fleshy atoms, her boozy atoms, her saltines
and cheese and tea, but not her piano concerto
atoms, her atoms of laughter and cruelty, her atoms
of lies and lilies along the driveway and her slippers,
Lord her slippers, where are they now?


About this poem
"I've been writing poems about my mother who died a few years ago. I've tried to write about other things, but she keeps elbowing her way in, saying, 'Remember me.'"
-Dorianne Laux

About Dorianne Laux
Dorianne Laux is the author of "The Book of Men" (W. W. Norton, 2012). She teaches poetry at North Carolina State University and is one of the founding faculty members in Pacific University's low-residency M.F.A. program.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Dorianne Laux. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate