In the hospital outdoors
Quadrant on the ground floor
a plastic rocking horse and planters

Where shrubby trees with long stems were planted
leaves shed from them, exhausted
laying on stones

we played upon

talking
as two preoccuppied children
I can’t remember what i asked just
knew that you were telling half truths

and answered like i was supposed to have done
not that i could complete them

It’s just my mother
she told me “take her
, she shouldn’t be here”
you were older even
but i felt mature walking through those eye drying corridors and in what seemed like a few turns we were

In the hospital outdoors
Quadrant on the ground floor
on a plastic rocking horse
Covered

Clouds overhead
I don’t remember how long it was

only that i couldn’t keep my mind from all the adults
crowded around eachother
and that i was the one who was young and didn’t really know what was going on
and i’m sorry that i left you in that moment

reflecting thoughts
as i turned and ran back across all those albus floors and through two doors into complete darkeness where rippled bodies
pressed cloths or another to themselves, pushing past in silence as the room itself stopped

and immediately understood

your mother was dead
and you were

In the hospital outdoors
Quadrant on the ground floor
Crying on a plastic rocking horse
without her