She lived a century and in the end,
what robbed her of her last breath 
was not age at all, but COVID-19.
No funeral or shiva to shed our tears,
hug one another, warm the chill of grief. 

But technology? There was that.
A computer, its monitor like a patchwork
quilt, lovingly stitched with stories of her life
threaded with sorrow and smiles by
family and friends in this virtual shul.

No plane ticket needed to travel the distance,
no time missed from work. Such things 
have a way of thwarting even the most 
important of events. Now, a simple click 
of a keyboard and there we were, 
a congregation of faces warming a
cold screen, united in prayer and song, 

piecing together the colors of her life. As 
a baby,  hidden in a drawer, nestled against
hooch in a tram as her family escaped
Russian pogroms. As a mother, raising her
intellectually challenged daughter at home.

Hosting family barbecues with Martha Stewart
flair. Rescuing a three-legged dog. Her sass
and laughs that would switch the light on sadness
in any room. And so it was here, every face
lit with memories of her. We’d all grayed 

since we’d last seen each other. Her daughters,
neighbors, friends. Grandchildren with children
of their own. Portraits in motion. Her legacy 
of love in a world gone amok. And in the end,
I smiled not because she was gone, but
because I knew somehow,  she was there.
                        

I’d been waiting for this phone call.
From my sister, my brother, from 
her nursing home.
“Mom’s passed,” I expected.
She’d been slowly swallowed by Alzheimer’s for months.
Like a frog caught in the grips of a snake’s fangs, 
eyes wide open, suspended in time and space.
Frightened, wanting to escape, not knowing how.

I’d visit weekly, leave every time, her words echoing in my head,
sometimes a sweet “I love you,” sometimes “GO HOME.”
Other times, wanting to leave with me, not knowing this is
where she now lived … the safety of nurses and aides
who would feed her and sing to her and make certain
she didn’t fall.

As time passed, talk about family slid into garble
and I knew that phone call would be coming soon enough.
I’d come home each time and wait for the phone’s ring
to fracture the silence of my fears. I’d trudge through
my daily paces, trying to block out her bedraggled look,
her once-stylish hair, now waist-length, rancid, uncombed. 
Stained sweats replacing skirts and neatly pressed blouses 
she’d always worn.

That call came. My sister-in-law’s voice first: Mom can hear you.
And then on the phone, my mother. Not her voice. Just the unsteady
hissing of oxygen. The voice for which I was waiting was oxygen.
Unsteady, but somehow rhythmic, soothing, Could she hear me? 
If she could, did it matter?  I don’t know.

“I love you, Mom.” The snake hissed, drowned my memories
of her singing, her last “I love yous.” Her humor, love of cats,
stories of childhood. Just hissing. She was still in the snake’s fangs, 
but not for long. I had spoken to her last breath.
                        

A starless night lit by cars in flames
and torched buildings, where streets
paved with shards from broken panes,
the plaintive screams of Blacks with broken dreams,
their dreamer, Dr. Martin Luther King, murdered.

My house was in the path of despair; I was 
at a friend’s, a place out of time, where 
dinner plates were edged in gold and flatware
shimmered. Steam spiraled from a fat, juicy roast,
fresh warm bread in a woven basket, butter by its side. 

Words blurred together in a cloud of conversation,
Carmen played softly in the background that couldn’t
blot out the cries of loss that echoed in my head. Had these
people not heard the news? Did they not hear the world
crumbling outside their castle as they ate in peace?

Spits of fire and pop pop pop of guns, mournful cries echoed in
my head, drowning out Carmen and idle talk. I lived in a world 
of ungilded plates in the heart of hurt, where white skin was
my armor in an unforgiving world. Here, I was in the safety 
of ignorance. 

“WHO PUT BREADCRUMBS IN THE BUTTER?”
Her dad’s voice chilled my blood, His gray brows
furrowed, his blue eyes glazed with fury, aimed at me.
I wondered what Dr. King’s last words were.