Do You Know I Whisper Your Name, Too

You whisper out my name

in a hospital bed,

in another state.

Of course, I am

not there.

You used to tell me that

when you were sick,

I would be the one

you’d call for.

Me. The one never home.

The daughter who ran

off to life.

My brother sends

a picture of you,

body a giant,

unrecognizable lump

under a hospital sheet.

Whale-like. You’d have killed

him for that if you weren’t dead.

“Why would he send

that?” my daughter

asks. “People make

no sense.” I explain

about bodies and gas,

forensic science,

how things happen

inside us

that we don’t understand.

I explain it

like I understand.

It isn’t until I get