Matterless

She was always shifting matter
around herself for maximum happiness.

If enough fat melted off her face
without stealing from her breasts,

if her children would visit long enough
for a day to feel mundane, to the point

that made her long to write
instead of watch their painful shows,

if she could move enough compost,
plant seeds, avoid the biting gnats of June,

she could dial in. She knew the channel
would always slip. Still she tried.

When her hearing started to go and then
her eyes, and no amount of prednisone,

yawning, blinking lids or layers of lenses
brought full sound or focus,

her inner focus sharpened first on anger’s grit,
then the leather of impermanence.

Her body quit to show her where she lived.
No amount of training in that space

prepared her for her not/happiness.
She chased and then refused the place.

2016