First Words

by Terri Glass

She sat in the green velvet rocker
next the brown gas stove
and rocked me until I was one year old-
I, being the baby in the family
with three older brothers and a sister
my mom could barely keep tract of.
Special treatment I had until her stroke-
a silence that permeated my body
like oil into a carpet.
Somewhere between diapers
and my first words,
she left for the nursing home.
For nine years we visited her there
walking through hallways that smelled
of urine and disinfectant.
For nine years I watched her
from her hospital bed
propped up, mute as she was-
she muttered sounds but no words.
I have carried that silence ever since
like a bag over my head suffocating me.
I yearned to turn her grief into words
that somehow would echo through a canyon
and end up in the trill of a winter wren’s throat.
What would she say now
if she were still alive
if her words could spill out like a warbler
yellow, robust full of melody and charm?
What would she say to me
in that old green velvet rocking chair?