When I Dream of my Mother

When I Dream of my Mother Being Beaten

Between the living world

and the world of death

is a clear, cold pane;

a man who looks too close

must fog it with his breath,

or hold his breath too long.

                                                                Wendell Berry

                                                                The Cold Pane

Slept and while sleeping the same dream:

but really remembering: they took you

by the cheek and jaw and shoved and squeezed

and in my dream while I slept they did this:

(let’s say I can’t get away awake either) I’m driving

hour after hour to get to you to pull you through

your newest suicide but you couldn’t

wait and someone else does the killing for you

or tries to and by the time I arrive you’re almost

dead: your head is a new hue of blue, of thick

as pine-bark blood that is cat-gut stitched: a split

in two lip like now you’ve got three and always

needed three: an eye-lid too, cat-gut stitched too

like now you’ve got three and always needed

three (don’t we all need three eyes, two for

all the watching ahead, one to keep watch

behind?): the spotted and mottled jaw and along

you neck…I’m…                 I’m… what’s the next line?

I’m fine you say and turn away and hate me

seeing you.  Yesterday you were fine.  Ok, you

weren’t fine you were emptying pill bottles

down your throat in your my fine, but you were

still alive and now after you take the beating

and then begin to forget about it (a concussion

like the one you survived) (you shouldn’t have

survived the surgeon said) and all the rest of your head

trauma) in my dream I’m telling you holding you

I’m a long long time doing it I don’t wake up and you

don’t wake up and we die while we sleep

and creeping things fall between your third lip

and your third eye and settle there, curled up

for the long in and out of your medical coma dream

where this time you open the door and no one

wants to hurt you.