"The Last Time My Mother Signed her Name" and "The Last Week My Mother Breathed" by CLS Sandoval
OCTOBER 2024
The Last Time My Mother Signed Her Name
we had already settled it all
promised Mom that she wouldn’t
have to think about money again
the trust would stay as it was
mom would just write a check to her husband
she did
he cashed it
then Kiki called
Mom’s money manager said
the IRA was going to her husband
unless she filed a form to change it
Mom was never one to read the fine print
Barbara apologized for having to ask
Mom wanted her daughters to have the money
Pastor Craig came to be the second witness
Marcie came to notarize
I left the room
with Barbara‘s hand under her trembling hand
Mom signed her name for the last time in her life
leaving my sister and I everything she had left to give
---
The Last Week My Mother Breathed
tsk ha tsk ha
tsk ha
tsk ha tsk ha
tsk ha
The sound of the oxygen machine
Perfectly spaced
On time
Keeping the rhythm of life
air
for a dying woman
It sounds like the beginning
of a performance art piece
or a number in Chicago
My mother receiving what she needs
but she tells me today that she’s ready to go
she knows she’s going to Heaven
She’s peaceful
Save the teary moment
she tells me
this is the last thing she wanted
We all thought she would have
another decade or two
But no one wants that long for her
if she’s confined to this bed
She wants to know if we’re near the end
I tell her that I’m not happy
this is happening to her
But I am happy to serve her
The best hugs increase our body temperature
release oxytocin, relieve stress, make us happier
With their release, a chill
the impression of that person’s body
pushing into ours
absence and lack
sorrow and grief
prove she was here
Each memory paid for
with the price of time
tsk ha tsk ha
tsk ha
tsk ha tsk ha
tsk
---
9/2/2024
CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches and rarely relaxes. She’s presented at communication conferences, served as a poetry and flash editor, published 15 academic articles, two academic books, three full-length literary collections, three chapbooks, and both flash and poetry pieces in literary journals, recently including Opiate Magazine, The Journal of Radical Wonder, and A Moon of One’s Own. She is raising her daughter, son, and dog with her husband in Walnut, CA.
