Resurrection

I have just hung up the phone
and in this moment feel
her presence,
risen from the dead and transported
back into my head by microwaves.

I am her son you said.
Simple words that raised the dead.
I only wanted to know a few things.
But you need to know more.
I rewind our conversation and hope
I haven’t scared you off.

I’m filled with images from “Unexplained Mysteries”:
Families reunited, lost children found,
adoptions unraveled, birth mothers embraced.
But she’s dead and you can never know
how she sang us to tears.
She was a singer, you ask.
I hear the hitch in your voice.
I sing--I love music.

When she was 17 and taking voice lessons
our grandmother and aunts begged her for a song.
So one evening we set up chairs in the kitchen
and closed the door against the men
who would embarrass her.
She had to turn her back on us
so she wouldn’t get nervous
as she sang show tunes.
In our little row, sisters, mother,
aunts, grandmother wept to hear her
But she never saw.

I hope you will call again.
We would try not to overwhelm,
not to smother you with pent up longing.
But we could gather in the kitchen,
and you could sing or not.
And you could turn your back to us
but those of who are left
will hear her voice, light and sweet
in lullaby to the baby she never knew.