Mother! That Was All

It’s a strange thing to read

Often, how often men

Dying from battle wounds

Will cry for their mothers.

It turns up in accounts

Of very different wars,

Very different battles,

Snow, rain, sand dunes, forests,

Beach assaults, sinking ships.

Is it possible mind

Actually reverts

To earliest childhood?

Why is it then those dying

Of whatever causes

Aren’t as prone to this cry?

Or occasionally

Maybe even the old

Call out for their mothers

As they die, but it’s not

Remarked on? After all,

It’s only the living,

The survivors who bear

Witness, not the dying,

And what haunts the soldier

Might not be what haunts those

Keeping beside vigils,

Straining to hear faint sighs.

Outlast Our Days

Crusty white calcium stains
From where the cats’ water dish
Has slopped on the laminate,

Can you picture that or not?
A royal blue throw-blanket
Of polyester velour

Spread out across a sofa
Made of a futon and frame,
Can you picture such a thing?

A couple of folding chairs,
A creaky rocker, a broom,
A few shelves of paperbacks,

It’s a plain scene full of plain,
Not-at-all-valuable things,
Messy junk—not rustic: cheap—

And yet time could preserve it,
Crushed flat, perhaps, as midden.
Could you picture this crap then?