Susan P. Blevins

By the window keeping lonely watch stands
my Mother’s favorite armchair,
velvet faded from the sun that tentatively
reached into the room to warm her suffering body
years ago, when courageously she faced the
demons of cancer that ate away her body

How can I ever part with this armchair?
Memorial of a conversation we had as she
approached the fated end of life on this earth, in
this incarnation, at this time, with me,
her only child

She sat in this chair, and I leaned against her knees
while she lovingly stroked my hair. Looking up at
her, I listened while she poured out her grief and sorrow,
expressed the horror she felt at seeing the ravages of
cancer slowly but surely erupting all over her body,
consuming her flesh like the stinking sulfurous
Phlegraean Fields of Pozzuoli in southern Italy

Then in a moment demon transformed into angel
and she said to me, “Darling, all the suffering, all the pain of
surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, it’s all been worth it to
bring us together as close as we are in this moment, today.”
The blessing of our tears is held in that armchair, the tender
words of love we spoke echo around it like a cloud of angels
singing throughout eternity the ultimate song of love