memory is a river that does not flow in one direction
it circles and pauses and sometimes questions
its own authenticity.

I cannot tell; the night my mother’s body was carried to mortuary
I was lying in her last warmth on her bed
listening to my father's recount
of their past; his painful voice portrayed a broken woman
I was not familiar at all - hours ago
I kissed my mother's left eye unclosed like that of a doe
and was wondering
what was the last she saw when walking alone into the dark
and if death would be the beginning for her to laugh again

what is real? I don’t know
when one was sitting there reminiscing, one in bed listening, and one in mortuary freezer box,
I knew all of us had been in different universes, and all the time,
though we migrated as one single family

what the river says, I am not sure that is what I can say.
sometimes I get drowned, other times I fly by like a bird.