Bell

When a ninety-three-year-old gets diagnosed and I say,“It’s OK. She’s lived a long life,”

I hear the little bell inside my head tolland know that I have fucked up. Because

isn’t a betrayal always a betrayalfirst, even before logic, or euphemism—

even for a body on loan?And doesn’t a mother follow suit?

A mother is always, even whenthe lights are turned low for bed,

and her body you borrowedfor a blanket once turns away

and out the door.The bell rings: remember

sleeping in the car on a trip across country,and how we came to a clearing

around a bend. The sky was suddenlyvisible again after miles of dark wood.

She turned around then, too, I imagine,whispering: Baby, you ever afraid

of the dark any more?

The line in italics is from Joan Didion’s story “The Welfare Island Ferry.”