Suspension

Suspension

By DJ Gaskin

The nurse, too

pale, informs me

my mother will likely

not see morning. Bending

over the bed

that isn’t even hers, I study

how the lines of a hard

life have run rivers

through her disguise. Standing

vigil above her shuttered

eyes, I search for a sign

that she is still

somehow alive

under this rubble of science.

At what point--

I wonder--

does one cease to live

and begin to die? Who tells us

the moment we’re out

of time?

Her mouth is still, her lips

albescent. She breathes

through a line of plastic tubing

from her throat where freshly

sliced. Intoxicating

machines with skipping lights report

she’s still alive, as if such

illuminating brightness must

be irrefutably right. I’m feeling

as suspended as she, as

if awaiting

her blessing, permission

to call it a night, to leave

her to time-

lessness, move

on, reluctantly, to tend

to my own luminance.