Song

Priscilla Atkins

Hush, I thought I heard her

call my name.

It wasn’t so loud,

it was so nice and plain.

Eddie James “Son” House, Jr., “Death Letter”

The orange flame of a mid-September morning slipping

down linden, maple and elm. Your three-story, high-

ceilinged home. Your mama, almost eighty, spent the night

on the couch. She rises and searches the silent apartment

for you. No one wants to wake you since the brain

tumor scare. When she can’t find you, she phones Mark

already at work, I peeked in the bedroom—he isn’t there.

Since the surgery two weeks past, nights are so long, Mark’s

been sleeping downstairs. He suggests to your mother: Check

the basement—sometimes he putters around down

there . . . call me back, let me know. Her right hand shaky, your

old mama starts down two flights of stairs. Opens the door,

turns on the light, and sees you lying there.

She stumbles to her knees, already knows you’re dead:

in his clothes, a bag over his head. Home for lunch, the phone

rings, I pick up the receiver and the kitchen cups blur. Throw

nonsense in a suitcase and drive three hours south. Unbarred

a vital vessel breaks free. Piece of my mouth rolling down

a road towards a morning-washed room. What is that sound?

is it coming from you? is it coming from me? Hear it

there. Low slow notes. That barely move the air.