By Kim Gek Lin Short

When I see my mother --
the pale chipped walls,
the hospital bed
a loose shroud,

I cannot help but search for
the warm flower petals,
the sweet humidity:
the woman she was.

But the stale anesthetics push stench,
and the sharp blade of her shoulder,
a guillotine sharpening its blade
across my neck, once hers

a specimen jar on the bed table
reaches for my blood,
and our neck, a ladle, scoops
red clots between drooling
sharpness of thin teeth
already slick with green phlegm.

I think: I want to inhale her.
Suck her through my nose nipple first.

But then she tells me not to cry,
"I'm being silly."
So I force down the quickness
of short breaths,
and we talk about my becoming
a mother.

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