What I Pray, Today
for Antoinette Graven Perkins, Nov. 6, 1923-?  

Now I lay her down to sleep
I pray the Lord her soul it keeps
that she may sleep and sleep and sleep
never to wake to see my face, in this place.  

Mother lies in her bed, in her room,
in my brother and sister-in-law’s home,
in New Mexico, a shadow of a skeleton,
mouth open waiting for her soul to fly  

or does she gasp to take in new life
with greedy gulps that produce shallow
strokes like those of a flimsy rubber oar?
We don’t know because she doesn’t say.  

With each efforted breath I think I hear
her dreams- to soar, to run, to know,
to see, to be young. What’s inside her head
may only be freed if the Lord performs this next deed.  

She woke at four and couldn’t sleep,
by her side I lay and prayed for quiet,
for her rasp to stop its rattle,
for her soul to become the wings  

of my freedom and the winds behind her boat.
Set her free, set her free, please
hoist her sails so they may catch the breeze
that propels her to a different space.  

If only she could will her ways away.
I don’t know what the other siblings pray
they don’t speak so I can’t hear,
but, this is what I pray, today, for Mother.