shoot me she said

shoot me she said

what?

did I hear right?

my mother was known to speak her mind

but was she serious?

my mother, my doorway into life

always present,

not known to make jokes

shoot me she said

I don’t want to

spend my last years

in that place           

that place with its

smell of urine

creaky corridors

whispers and cries

shoot me she said

but I don’t have a gun

and if I did I couldn’t

shoot me she said

as if spending

the rest of my life in prison was

the lesser of two evils

I couldn’t,

she shrugged

I move away

half a continent

another country

a year later, the call came

she’s gone my brother said

as if it was the end of everything

I was with her he said

she had been sick for days.

I was helping her

back from the bathroom

she just collapsed

a stroke

it was like she had been shot.

he looked at her

touched her, no pulse

waited

waited

                      waited

then he called for help

they came

              so fast

pounded on her chest,

electric paddles,

“extraordinary measures”

assaulting her cooling body

he prayed

prayed that they were too late

they were