Matt Witt, Great Blue Heron in Flight, 2018 (Artist Website)
Photograph
Will there be a service?
Did she make her wishes known?
Does her husband get her pension?
Will he replace the carpet that had worn like a brown bare trail
that generations of deer had walked?
Did she suffer?
Are our mother’s salt-and-pepper shakers stored in the towers
of boxes that line their living room like sand cliffs on a trail
to the beach?
Can he cook?
Will the driver of the recycling truck notice the lightness
in the glass bin, how gravity has let loose with one
heavy hand so the few lonely bottles nearly float?
What was her expression?
If there is a heaven, will her best friend who OD’d still be fifteen?
If there is a heaven, will she get to say she broke on through
to the other side?
Can she still sing?
What is the proper way to leave this message on a voicemail?
Is she watching?
Where has her body been lying while the world blinks and blinks,
trying to shake off this blanket, feeling the lightness of unburdening
and the dimming dogfight of the past with its flung bottles
and burnt pans?
Will she stare at me in my dreams?