The night after she returned from the hospital
the uneven rumbly liquid breathing of one soon to go under kept me at the surface of thoughts
I couldn’t escape. Clonazepam, Lorazepam, not even Ambien could pull or sink me. And in the morning,
sure enough, we couldn’t coax or shake her awake except for a few seconds when someone or thing
wrenched her eyes open and let her answer no to every question in a scornful voice we’d never heard before
before pulling her down to that rocky undertow. Through the morning and afternoon every breath,
a grunt, a rattling that soaked the bedclothes and pillows in sweat. Then at 3 pm, she returned—recognizing her two daughters
speaking her own name and the name of the president. The hospice nurse put a line through the word “Comatose”
scrawled at the top of her chart and for the next few hours a light or absence seemed to emanate from her almost
emptied irises. No sentences. No speech as the white nimbus of hair, thick and lively around her head
nodded yes to sitting up and getting dressed— to sweet potatoes and Jeopardy! as though part of her
remained in that rheumy underwater place that took her breath away and wiped out the syntax
of explanation and inquiry, leaving only no I won’t and certainly not and don’t ever wake me up again. | 
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