What's Left Is Still Her

She asked me who I was again

and I said a friend, because it's easier

than watching her apologise

for a thing that isn't hers.

We had a lovely afternoon.

She told me about her son.

He sounded wonderful.

I said he sounds wonderful.

What's left is still her.

Not the album. Not the story.

The way she holds a cup with both hands,

the way she hums at the window.

She's not a smaller version of before —

she's a person in a room today.

Meet the person in the room.

The hardest part is not forgetting —

it's that I keep trying to correct her,

keep dragging her back to a shore

she can't swim to anymore.

So I stopped. And I got in the water.

And the water was fine. It was fine.

What's left is still her.

Not a fraction. Not a ruin.

She laughed today at something small

with her whole face, exactly as she always did.

Grief kept telling me she'd gone.

Grief was in the wrong room.

DON'T YOU DARE MOURN HER IN FRONT OF HER!

SHE IS RIGHT THERE! SHE IS RIGHT THERE!

SHE CAN HEAR THE WAY YOU TALK ABOUT HER

IN THE PAST TENSE IN HER OWN HOUSE!

SHE IS RIGHT —

What's left is still her.

She held my hand at the door tonight

and didn't know why,

and did it anyway.

That's not a fragment of my mother.

That's my mother.