Time

Time of Death

Saturday night, on the way to declare my mother dead,

the hospice supervisor got lost.  Her GPS ran out of data,

led her down our dark country road, to an end

that was no end, just nowhere, a black stopping place

between peanut fields and dense acres of pine,

the unmapped road and rolling hills persisting

as far as the car's headlights could shine.  By then,

my mother had been dead for some time, comfortable

and propped in bed, at last her pancreas and cancer out of gas.

The death certificate will say 10:15 p.m., but she died

all week­, and before.  On Monday, she woke for three mornings

—5, 8, and 10—each time asking for coffee, but falling

back asleep on the couch before the pot dripped

its way to done.  Tuesday she gave up breakfast and food

altogether; Wednesday sat on the porch one final

time, watched the hummingbirds visit from another world,

her face a blank, unsigned form.  On Thursday, she refused

water, walked herself to the bathroom for a terminal,

autonomous pee.  But language faded all along, as if words

were a load too heavy to tote from one place to the next.

Friday she said, “I love you,” and “Take care of Jeanne,”

her youngest sister, who was very sick.  All day Saturday,

we watched her chest rise and fall, counted beats, swabbed

her lips, teeth, and tongue, till she took a breath near dark

that was not a breath, just an empty gasp, a dry suck on the straw

that was her life.  7:55 p.m.  So we sat, held, hovered, waited

for the one who could say she’s dead.  Not thinking then,

but now, what is the real time of death?  Near 11:30, when

the funeral director and his men rolled her toward us in the den,

my brother unexpectedly said, “Can we kiss her goodbye?”

Surprised, but agreeable, the handlers paused, pulled down

the rich, velvet spread, revealed the black vinyl bag beneath.

Though I can’t recall the exact time, no matter how hard I try,

when they zipped her back up, I know something died.