Three weeks after our mother fell in the middle of the night

by Todd Campbell

and hit her head on the edge of a table
I lost my car at the mall where I stopped
to buy a white board on which to write
in large block letters the names
of the strangers who come each day
for a couple hours around lunch
and dinner. By the time my sister
found her, the pool of blood
in the front hall was nearly dry.
Our mother is like an on old TV
not quite tuned to a station.
Snow filtering across the screen
hints at program with characters
and a plot. Every day she asks why
someone has rearranged the cabinets
in her kitchen. I make my way up
the endless spiral of the parking garage
looking for my car though I know
exactly where I left it.

---

Todd Campbell is a speechwriter, poet, and mosaic artist based in Seattle where he has lived for the past three decades. His poetry has appeared in Pangyrus, Poet Lore, Reed Magazine, The Shore, Watershed, and elsewhere.