My Final Selfish Silence

My Final Selfish Silence

Hospital chatter and clatter
Faded to a background murmur
As I closed the door on it
Just shadows and lights through frosted glass
As evidence that the world still turned
She lay straight and still
Draped in a fresh sheet
Clean as an altar cloth
Folded precisely under her chin

My mother waited, packaged
With hair newly brushed
(To the wrong side)
And the hiss of an oxygen mask
Lifting one strand from her forehead
She slept away her last chapter
So I watched her leaving me

Without any goodbyes
Distance holding back the words
That we both needed to hear
Hesitating faltering and leaving
My throat thick with remorse
At my final selfish silence