Watching People Sleep
(I like to think she Knew I was there)


Sometimes
when I'm awake at night,
I go to your room and
watch you sleep, my daughter says.
She is eight.
I try to remember--
did I feel her gaze
across the room
in the morning light?
I like to think I knew
she was there.

The last time
I watched my mother sleep,
she floated
in a water-filled mattress,
belly swollen
by the football-sized tumor.
She opened morphine eyes and
I think
looked at me.
Had she felt my gaze
across the room
in the morning light?
She closed her eyes.
She died.
I like to think she knew
I was there.
I was thirty-six.

~By Pat Kondas~

Taken from the 1997 issue of The Wire Harp.