August 2015
Family is very important to me. In fact, my chapbook Hello, it's Your Mother (Finishing Line Press, October 2015) is about my sometimes tumultuous relationship with my mother and how I came to terms with this as I cared for her while she was dying. I learned an important lesson: we all do the best we can. Live your life, live and let live. Please visit me at http://lauriekolp.com.
The Gap Between
9 months, life
my nephew’s born as I sit beside my sister-in-law,
a blue curtain draped to hide the doctors
delivering baby surgically
I’m wearing a mask and scrubs, my hair covered with cap
holding her hand—it happens so fast I want to peek
but am told to sit back down
all are ecstatic when baby first cries
but no, I’m not the grandmother
9 months later
my mother dies as I sit beside her hospital bed
the stagnant room cold and soundless
and I, cocooned in boundless dread
hoping for repose, these cancerous months crap
I lie beside her shell and smell death
while my father and sister cry,
my tears lost in desert sand
somewhere within a vapid heart
©2015 Laurie Kolp