Mom died with the Lakefield wind at her back.
She was ninety one years old
and she sang her way into the future
over the storm of a century,
and the chapel she built with a few syllables
made father bend down
and kiss the ground she swept.
They took a taxi into the city,
got dinner but missed the movie.
Genghis Khan wept into his popcorn and
Frank O'Hara slept next to a woman
who looked like his mother.
Nobody bothered to stay settled
in the time and place they were born.
Instead, they went elsewhere because
where else could they be steady and warm and find
those fatal notes
tucked behind their ears,
cigarettes like cigars and
songbirds like greyhounds
with their ears tucked back
and their leather shoes glistening with sweat.