And Where Is Mom? Poem by RIC BASTASA

she is not there anymore
she is not an all time giver
a hundred percent present

she gets fed up too when emptiness comes
drifts and diffuses in her clothes and skin

when insanity begins to eat
her hairs
she will stop comforting you

and will not even know who you are
that breastfed baby
whose skin no fly has ever smelled
no mosquito has even flown to a distance
of a millimeter

she is one kind of mortal too
she can fall asleep forever
into this eternal sickness
and from thence
can no longer sing your
lullaby for the night