HOSPICE NURSE

assumes I’ll help

      asks me to place my mother’s limbs…

      shift her slight and sleeping body.

I’m so afraid of this finality.

Her nakedness strips me of denial.

For a moment it feels like a violation

      deepest intrusion

      of my mother’s private space.

Then shock passes, as does fear.

Even now she wears the quiet dignity

      that has characterized her life.

As fragile as naked,

      now a child, she curls in upon herself

      in sleep that will go deeper.