Sweet Bird Knows Me

Long before she died
worms worked their way
through my mother’s heart:
worms of doubt, guilt, loss.

My revelation about my mother
not facing my brother’s death,
is that she was four years old
when the spanish influenza
swept through her neighborhood
and a truck stopped by every day
to collect the dead
from her apartment building.

There are entire days
when my mind cannot organize
the ability to discern black print
as letters to form words.
The word I search for most
is love, but love is not something
I feel toward my mother’s memory.

Yet, my mind pictures my mother
looking down from heaven
and acknowledging
what we did not share.

I envision her kisses reaching out
and, like a robin, pulling worms
from holes in my flesh,
because she knows exactly
where they reside.

Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM, USA. His poetry shows up regularly on the web and sporadically in print. His latest collection of poems is An Accident Practiced.