Mom Death Poem No. 4

Action, you told me, is the antidote to anxiety. Nice alliteration, I said, ignoring its meaning. Later I found out there is wisdom under just about any rock if you know how to turn it over correctly. But your calls to my house spurred more anxiety than action. They put me in the fetal position, dotted my palms with sweat. I always worried that what has happened would happen: something could go wrong, you could be sick or – God forbid – dying. Today you are dying and you say nothing to me because you are basically in a coma, catatonic, can’t talk. How’s that for alliteration? I think, bending over you, playing John Denver on my phone. You used to hold me while this song spun itself out on the record player: Thank God I’m a country boy! Yee-ah! In the movies this would wake you up and you would tell me something else profound before ducking back into the Great Darkness. This is not the movies.