She gets up, moves away from her closed mouth,

She, immobile for so long,

Walks! Steps carefully, like someone

Getting up after a long, long illness.

She walks through his forehead, through my heart,

Through another’s tangled hair. She walks—on her own.

For a moment she looks, puzzled,

At the abandoned body and, without regrets,

At us, bent in pain in a morning fog

Like roadside branches. She pushes them

Aside and departs. She fades into radiance.

If I could only believe it! But I didn’t see anything

Besides the eyes congealed with tears

And the cold indifferent hands. Mama!