Poem #319 of 365

i.

he rocked her to death
he rocked her to death.

ii.

my mother is in the doorway
and my eyes have just opened
to the day
i think she wants a hug
but she gives me a skirt
and coerces me to try it on

as we make a little conversation
and i try to elevate her spirits
while she repeats

5th and morphy
5th and morphy.

he did it it to his own mother
he killed his own mother

and i remind her not to dwell
on the tv news, especially
when it can drown in despair
along with you in it

but she is stuck on repeat
and so i hug her, admonish
her, figure her out in my
half-waked state of
understanding.

iii.

there is seaweed across his cheek
and the tide is moving in and out
lulling them to slumber,
she wears a tight cardigan, faded
mustard, over a flower-patterned dress.
she may have been taken over with
a deep cough, bubbles in her lungs,
and her toes keep floating up to
be tickled by the foam. he is her
son and silent, staring at the horizon
where the greying sky meets the sea,
but briefly lays his lips to her head,
filling with ocean and fins of the end.
as the waves pull and push, their dance
becomes a steady lullaby of teetering,
a little to the right, a little to the
left. he is rocking her, he is rocking
her, he is rocking her to death,
he is rocking with her to death.

iiii.

that ocean laps so close sometimes.
rocking me to reality.
doorways and cryptic visits
from mothers happen in morning time,
and i live two blocks
from she who was rocked to death.


copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez



[Police Arrest Man Suspected Of Killing His Mother With Rock - November 15, 2007

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Forth Worth police said they arrested a man Thursday morning who they suspect was involved in the death of his mother.

Police said they suspect Erasmo Herrera, 24, beat his 75-year-old mother, Juana Herrera, over the head with a rock in front of her home in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue.

Neighbors called 911 and the mother was taken to JPS Health Network, where she died just after arriving.

Herrera ran away, but police caught him a short time later.]