The Quiet Death

My mother entered this life jumping and shouting

All awhile she was learning of womanhood.

Her rattling bones lived with full of heart,

And all awhile she managed to become magnificent

For a day or two.

Her human engine lived

With full heart, and there was no indifference

Of whom she was, no doubt

Of the patronizing cancer,

An automatic death.

The city of calm death

Worked the contamination into her rattling bones,

Bones that was too weary

To fight the quiet death.

My mother entered this life jumping and shouting,

And all awhile lying on the medical damned bed

She told me of a dream

She had.., - a dream of a place

Where pain is a conceived fear

Not relieved by the quiet death.

Poem and Photograph by Alfonso Coley - All Rights Reserved"