(1) Sister Elizabeth

Sister Elizabeth, the old gods have failed me, for seven weeks, I have prayed only to you. I've been so heartsick and in tears, drifting down lonely streets beneath a hemlock moon, nothing seems familiar anymore, nothing I can call home. Utterly abandoned, utterly alone gazing at strangers for consolation but being turned away like a tax collector or a salesman. Remembering a thousand conversations, words I spoke softly with kindness to you but lingering even longer on any cruel or inconsiderate nuance that I allowed myself to breathe into the air. Now, seeing your face in every window, hearing songs you sung before your voice was stolen, tasting the same candy you kept in purses or beneath your pillow before you became a creature unable to swallow, drinking from the same coffee cups from which you must have prayed and gave thanks before you drank the years before your death when still you could hold such feather-light utensils. Mother, how can I remember all of these things and more and not weep in the sleepless night? how can I be acquainted with your heart and know the people you fed and then see you unable for three years to eat a single morsel and not desire my own grave? How can I contemplate ever sleeping on a bed again recalling taking your bed apart and removing it for a hospital bed as my dying father watched me with his own affection and concern? How can I remember your tears when a speech pathologist told you there were no therapies to save your ability to speak and any longer place any value on my own words I once cherished? The nights hearing you call your mother in your sleep, the morning waking thinking your sister Lola was in bed with you, your niece Connie who was my age but remained with you as a child angel before she perished two weeks before you, the nights we got up in the middle of the night because you wanted to cook for your late husband or father, how do I survive all this, Sister Elizabeth? Truly, the old gods have failed me and my prayers are just to you.