My Mother as Harp Seal, as Sacristan

In memory, she’s still floating in the salted

bath, warmth gone from the gritty water

I stir with my finger, her hair loose, adrift

over her body. White and quivering. Ask her

why she’s sad again, she slides, goes under,

blows bubbles. With only her mouth and nose

out of the water, she says, your brother,

dead baby, you remind me, you have

his name. This I know for true: like a clump

of snow from a shaken branch, he fell

from her belly. In memory, spots of wet

on the floor. We had knelt that morning

to give daisies and asters, to kiss the feet

of the pale, poor eggshell man who hung

on the church wall, his weight webbing

cracks through the plaster. Ask her, may we

bring a blanket for him? On my bureau,

I still have a thumb of blistered wax, a string

of dead beetles. On my bureau, she’s arranging

the candle and rosary. One hundred times

I will myself to remember the blanket I promised;

one hundred times, I forget.