When I was a baby, I once fell asleep
with my eyes open.
My mother walked in to check on me
and screamed, thinking I had died,
my little pupils staring ahead
with blank detachment.
She shook my belly, rocked me back and forth
until I blinked and rose, fitfully,
out of sleep
and she sat down in the rocker and held her head in her hands.

I visit her less and less now,
afraid (to tell the truth) of
seeing her hairless head,
the bags beneath her eyes,
a kind of disturbed worry I can’t
bear to witness.
She tells me she’s having a hard day,
can’t read or do a crossword puzzle
because she can’t concentrate.

I imagine her lying in bed
staring out the window at the
rolling Wisconsin hills, her eyes dazed,
fazing out reality,
becoming the infant
she was so afraid to find
in the crib years ago.

04/04/2006

Posted on 04/04/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lisa Marie Brodsky