Last Things
Kathleen Fagley
It will be the last time my mother visits me
in New Hampshire. I know that—don’t ask how.
The last time we slept in the double bed together,
she reached over and told me she had a good visit.
I reached over and pulled a lock of her curly hair
and said, I know. Me too.
I looked out at the lilac bush last night,
brilliant even in the dusk, incandescent like a flame.
In a week the lilac bush will have gone by
and lilacs will turn from deep purple
to dirty white then brown clumps.
She had asked me all week if I was going to cut the lilacs
and bring a bunch into the house.
But all week I kept forgetting
until they were gone.
Then she was gone.
in New Hampshire. I know that—don’t ask how.
The last time we slept in the double bed together,
she reached over and told me she had a good visit.
I reached over and pulled a lock of her curly hair
and said, I know. Me too.
I looked out at the lilac bush last night,
brilliant even in the dusk, incandescent like a flame.
In a week the lilac bush will have gone by
and lilacs will turn from deep purple
to dirty white then brown clumps.
She had asked me all week if I was going to cut the lilacs
and bring a bunch into the house.
But all week I kept forgetting
until they were gone.
Then she was gone.
Kathleen Fagley is a Pushcart-nominated poet whose chapbook, How You Came to Me, was published by Finishing Line Press in July 2012. Her poems have appeared in The Stillwater Review, Memoir Journal, Cutthroat, Nimrod Journal, and others. Recent poems appear in Summer 2022’s issue of Banyan Review and in Smoky Quartz Quarterly Tenth Annual Anthology, published in July 2022. A second chapbook was published by Concrete Wolf and designated as their chapbook Award Winner in 2024, entitled, Switchboard Shift. Her poem, "Trinity," is forthcoming from Paterson Literary Review.