Dot the I’s and Cross the T’s , poem by Joy Bowman

On her deathbed she asks me if I can still play 

the piano, and begins to sing of jasper roads.

I search the linen for for­got­ten cro­chet needles 

she swears are under the cushions. 

Her hands nev­er stop mov­ing, trem­bling out 

let­ter after let­ter into the air, spelling something 

intan­gi­ble, some­thing liq­uid. Nev­er forgetting 

to stab her fin­ger at the end of each line.

After she is buried, I hang no basil

and pray to a god I do not know, but fear.

Receiv­ing no answer, I pray to her instead, 

and final­ly to some­thing qui­et and unnamable. 

I imag­ine a sil­ver cord still exists between us,

not yet buried by the snowfall. 

Some­where between here and there, 

I find her in a mildewed trailer, 

next to High­way 30, head­ing east. 

I tell her I have my car wait­ing out back, 

you don’t have to stay here. 

In the back­yard my father is dows­ing for water, 

she has a headache so my palms begin to spill

salt over her gray hair. 

I try to take her cold hand into my mine, 

but she does not rec­i­p­ro­cate, they remain fixed

meld­ed into the porch banister.

Instead her eyes, milky and bewil­dered, stare 

into the dark­ness search­ing the dim hills, 

look­ing out into the dis­tance somewhere.

Joy Bow­man lives and writes in east­ern Ken­tucky. Her work can also be found in the anthol­o­gy Feel It With Your Eyes: Writ­ing Inspir­it­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ken­tucky Art Muse­um. She is a prac­tic­ing hermit.