My mother said, nana
Is sick.
I said nothing.
She said nana
Had a stroke last night.
I said nothing.
She said nana is in
The hospital, dying.
I said nothing.
She said nana is in a coma.
I said, with my eyes stiff and my heart numb,
Nothing.
She said, she would want you to come
And see her one last time.
I said
Nothing.
She lowered herself to my child's
Eye level, looked into my shocked face,
Into my blank mind, at my short gasps
For air, and said nothing.
I looked right into the whites of her eyes.
She began to cry.
I said nothing.
I wish I had said something.
There was nothing to say.
-Katherine Cincotta