This time in the public bathroom at the county fair.
Our father sits outside worrying his knuckles
in his blue denim overalls.
She has locked herself in a toilet stall so we see
only her white Walmart tennis shoes, the clouds
of soiled and crumpled paper. The smell
is a stalwart thing.
A stranger stands aghast by the sinks
forehead creased with What Should I Do?
She smooths when we arrive and
announce ourselves Daughters.
A rustling from our mother, a soft desperate
patter: It’s ok, ok, keep it quiet, keep it quiet.
I knock on the barrier between us and feel her
freeze. It’s me, Mom, I say before I remember
this means nothing to her anymore.
I have come to believe it is rude to call a person
Mother who no longer knows she is yours. My sister
gathers an armful of paper towels one by one
and I call our mother by her non-mother name.
I go gentle. I reframe her a lost child, a feral
cat. I make my voice an open palm. Outside
I hear our father saying Thanks, we’re ok now
to two men in blue because it’s America
so naturally someone has called the cops.
The lock falls open and our mother looks at me
as if I am the alien. Her hands are covered in shit
and her legs and her pants and the floor and the toilet.
I’m sorry she says and she says I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m
sorry I’m sorry.
The sob that shakes my sister is twinned in my throat
but I dig up a smile from the archives and keep pretending.
I lead her to the sink where we strip her from the waist
and soak the towels in warmish water. Her clothes
go in the trash, her shoes perhaps can be saved.
Her body we bathe as best we can.
I know you don’t remember this, I tell her as we
wipe and wipe, but you used to clean our bottoms,
both of us, when we were babies. This makes her laugh
her mouth a rounded O.
We squeeze our mother into a pair of jeans
her youngest grandchild left in the car. We
walk her barefoot through the door. Our father
rises, eyes for only her. Ready to go home?
he says as if we are all not staring down her
never-ending end.
Later my sister says You did good in there
and we laugh/weep/laugh. What else
can we do? What can we do.
