In the dream, my mother is dead
but still she calls me on the phone.
In the dream, there is a sheet cake
and a spilling pile of paper napkins,
and other mourners are on the way.
My mother asks about the flowers,
and I realize that I’ve forgotten
flowers, that I’ve failed to do what
people do in these times, that nothing
I could manage would be enough.
The icing on the cake is orange.
The napkins clash. From outside
comes the clap of a car door, where
guests have arrived, and at once
I realize that my mother can’t be
on the phone at all, that there is
nothing but the shush of air
on the other end. Still I ask her—
Can you hear me? I love you.
Can you hear me?—chasing the fine
white thread that’s already been
lifted from my hands by the wind.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 2.
Jacqueline West is a poet, novelist, and parent living in Minnesota. Her work has appeared in Mom Egg Review, Liminality, Sugar House Review, and Strange Horizons, and has garnered three Pushcart nominations and a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize. Her books for younger readers include the NYT-bestselling series The Books of Elsewhere and the Minnesota Book Award-winning Long Lost.
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