Family, Friends

my parents had family, not friends
and they fought
on my mother’s side
estranged aunts
I met as a teenager
unfamiliar voice on the phone
became a familiar face
for awhile

Catholic families with room
to spare
Celtic knots come undone
when the father dies.
We used to sing to him
all us cousins in the backyard
Goodbye Grandpa, we hate to see you go
before he left the family function

that was five, maybe ten
years before he lost his mind
and couldn’t remember my middle sister

they fought over hospice
and with hospice
”that woman would find fault with Jesus”
said the night time nurse
about one of the dying man’s
daughters, though I never learned
which one

My mother lives two miles
from her sister
they she shared a room
as girls, hearing their mother’s bloody lungs
heaving. Daughters who buried both parents
together

don’t speak.

In a few hours, I will lift
the lid to my laptop,
link to a window
where I will see my sisters’
faces and my parents’
faces and we will be together
and apart
as we have always been

Thirty three years after my mother’s mother died
ten years after my father’s

“It feels like a long time
since I got to talk with her”
he says as we wrap up
our biweekly phone call
”Well, I’ll let you get back to your day then
okay, yep, you too, bye.”