The room was yellow.  The room was yellow,  I think.  The room was yellow,  but
not like drawn fruit or screaming daffodil  trumpet.  More like straw.  Dead grass.
Urine,  but not like my mother’s urine,  which was rusty with blood  and bone dry
by the end. The room was pale, nearly colorless. Or maybe that was the light.  Not
sun,  but overhead.  A stage.  Was the light on?  I don’t remember, but it must have
been,  because  I  do remember  her face:   the way she  smiled  weak  like  a  paper
chrysanthemum, the way her eyes seemed like moving picture screens, not  seeing
but still flashing, effusion dark and wet with something. Fear? This was something
else, I think,  because as I sat beside her and waited for the radiologist  to speak, as
she explained her chain of  hibiscus,  four faded flowers inked  around her ankle, as
a  gift  to herself for surviving  my  young years,  or  at  least that’s what  I think she
maybe said,  I heard nothing but air rattling through throat,  a rotten thrum behind
my ears.   Only a hum, until the doctor turned  to me mirthful and said:  Now  don’t
forget, whatever happens, it’s all your fault.

The room was yellow, was low
fruit screaming
my mother’s
end
stage. I remember
eyes
flashing, effusion dark wet
and o o o o
her chain of four
surviving young
a rattling rotten

fault.

the screaming moth’s end
stage eyes flash: fusion, dark and
o chain, un-rattle