Sight Seeing Trip

When my mother died I went west with the man
I loved but could not marry. We kept missing the scenic routes, roadmaps outdated and torn. Drove too long each day—
only the cheap motels still had OPEN signs after midnight.

That night our motel room was shadowed 
and shabby. I lay partly clothed under the bedspread, 
not between the sheets, fearing the fall 
into sleep.  And then my mother came to me, 
her hair filled with leaves and pears, 
her eyes clear through layers 
of wallpaper, paste and plaster. 

She spoke calmly from the other side 
of the wall, of the world, 
of loving and losing, 
and I knew where she was, 
among the leaves and the pears
of the wall-world.

From Point of Attachment, Finishing Line Press, 2012