At the Holiday Inn
The room was crooked, somehow not a rectangle.
The bed seemed a wedge in space too small.
There was a chair my mother sat in, then my father.
We watched cartoons on the TV.
We waited for my husband to make arrangements
with the dead body. I sat on the bed after a bath
with matted hair.
After parents left, we rocked hard
against black silence.
The white ceiling,
misshapen, crushed us.
Some heavy burden, some guilt-like presence
pushed us to sleep.
I woke with a wet pillow and hair tangled,
I didn’t care.
It was Sunday.
The insignificance of death in relation to it all
sinks in as children yelled in the halls—you see,
it was Sunday morning
and they were free.