Dear Mom

Dear mom. I’m missing you and your sloppy smiles that fall to the sidewalk as you glint in afternoon sun. The smell of Opium rounds the corner ahead of your polished toes, red like ketchup.

I’m the only one that sees you’re wearing ocean blue flip flops. I’m the only one that sees you’ve come to life again like an orchid blooming for the second time.

Missing is like leaving off night to mare when talking about dreams. Missing is my itchy skin needing lotion.

You, sweet, in a short dress allowing for knees. I want to take a jacket and cover your bare shoulders, shaking off the chill, but know that your ghost body would not allow for it. The jacket would be left to fall to the floor.

I see you, but I’m greedy. I want your touch on my arm, prompting me to embrace your five feet eight inches, my chin on your shoulder.

How is death? I wonder. “Painless,” you say. The air hangs like dead drapes, moth eaten and dusty.

I want to believe you fare better in death than you had in life, scotch taking hold, leaving you slumped over a coffee mug. A fool says the liver is not important. You lost yours when it became laced with liquor. All talk stopped.

You looked beautiful in your coma. Your cheeks held their color. Your lips looked bruised as if you had just been kissed.

I imagine a peach at rest on your chest, waiting to be bitten, its juice promising to make rivulets.

In my vision, your arms appear stiff, your hands unclenched. Life escapes from between your fingers that stare at nothing. You hold nothing.

My black cats know you’re here. Their eyes focus on the space where you stand. They don’t meow. They don’t go to you for pets. They know your ghost body is not solid. They know should they paw at you that their paw would be lost to air.

I am glad for the glimpse of you standing in my doorway. It lessens the missing, my missing found in my closed palm, my missing cascading over me as you glint in the afternoon sun.