Tell them to open their mouths
and taste the air. If dust has
overtaken the saltiness, tell
them it’s okay to move closer
to the Pacific and that their mother
was not always confined
to this mattress, sedatives
swirling in her blood. Keep your
arms unburdened so they
have a place to drop their tears,
and if one wants to pick through
the detritus of decline, let them
but make room too for the other
who wants to hold the music
that made her hips sway. Tell
them when she was young,

nothing was easy, but there was always
her smile, a sunset breaking into
every room she entered.