Your Soul to Keep

In youth I wished you'd taught me
how to use my brains, to not rely on men,
to fight or at least cheer for women's rights.
There were such mothers in your time.

You wanted only what you knew as home,
my father's arms surrounding you,
and everything I railed against in later life
you simply said "That's what men do."

But in the final weeks before your fatal fall
you turned against your Lord Himself:
"How dare He deign to forgive me, assuming
trespasses He'll reckon at the end?"

"Let's pray instead the one beginning Now I lay me
down to sleep" you'd weep, specific memory gone,
so tired of life's persistence but refusing to be weak,
withstanding loss of sight and hearing, deep fatigue.

You threw off sheets and clothing in the hospital,
delirium of drugs revealing finally the little child,
worn naked by one hundred years plus four
and shouting "Get me out of here!"

I couldn't. So I held your hand, wept tears of laughter
when you said "Then I won't play with you." My friend,
more like a sister than a mother, and at last my baby girl,
a year has passed, and now I lay you down.