Death of a Woman

My Gladys went to town

and brought the measles home

like tiny rose-print cotton,

ready to be cut

to any size. My brother

pleaded with my mother,

ducked his head to hers

and muttered, "Come on, Ma."

But she refused to leave.

She ran the kitchen, flour

spattered on the blackness

of her braid. When fever

flared in me, she fed

my baby, calmed my children.

She watched with her good eye

that knew medicinal herbs,

and, with her hands that dug

the costly ginseng—hands

that midwifed newborns—now

she tended every cry.

She fell into her bed,

lay there until the fever

in her cooled. She rose

and asked for turnips—then

(no moment's hesitation)

she died.

At midnight, lamps

were flickering, pressed against

the darkness, as we stood

encircling her old bed.

At dawn the hills cast shade,

but she was wafted out

across a blinding whiteness

of new snow.

Copyright © 1986 Marian Jane Dickinson