My Mom Has Gone Poem by Ken Nye

MY MOM HAS GONE

Christmas Day,
driving my mother
back to the caring facility
that is now her home,
I ponder the reason for my melancholy.
The answer comes to me as
I tune in again to my mother
talking about the little man
that comes into her room every night
and steals her dresses.

My mom,
the beautiful, loving woman
who was the central figure of my early years
and a presence throughout my life,
is no longer a part
of the world in which I live.
My mom has gone.

Sitting in our living room surrounded by her family,
she mutters to me in a whispered aside,
' I have no idea who these people are.'

The person I still call 'Mom'
is not sure who I am either,
but she accepts me as someone she can trust.
She tells me stories about her son Ken,
perceiving me to be someone else.

Next to the Christmas tree
with me beside her, she doesn't know where she is
or why she is here.

She uses her life story,
now told in jumbled, illogical, imaginary vignettes,
in place of conversation.
She reminisces about
buying her first home over the telephone
at the age of six for six dollars;
about the midgets housed by her father
in little metal cages on railroad train flat cars
under the Brooklyn Bridge.

Although there are times,
even in the fantasies she tells us,
when my mother's self deprecating wit
reveals itself.
the story in which it is set
is so incredible, the wit has no charm.

No, my mom has gone.
I no longer dread her dying.

My mom has gone.
I watched her go.