The Transparent Mother

The Transparent Mother 

And you were
gone
vanished.

No ghost 
trailing
asking 
pleading.

The police took my photo of you
barefoot
bloody toes
face turned away

“She walked twelve hours
Spoke to no one,” they said.
I believed it.

I grew up with your
illness
drifting 
sudden blanks

“Nursed me six weeks,” you said.
that brief latch
a failed charm 
against
what waits.

A sharp light passes through
green and forever changing
A chameleon

“My first love 
wound,
already slipping,
gone.”