“being called names, a kind-of sonnet”

monday, noon. we rarely chat, y'know (so flowering intimacies can

occur in thought only). she calls me names, forgetting mine.

her cadence shifts, reimagined a gracile, harsh-tongued mess of words:

back to her pre-medicated self, shifting tall before falling back.

small again, my version of her—skin purpling and ashy,

nearly sallow with it, eyes bloodshot from drugs/geriatric sleep

patterns/rushing arthritis + diabetes + dementia + etcetera, the fillips of demise.

she folds monochromatic clothes and calls me my mother's petname

until i flush. we rarely chat, as disorientation muffles conversation

into "whats" and "huhs" and the woman coffled beyond her

emerges and speaks to me (celestial and voicing your mouth,

i meet you before you became the you now: beaumont.

sweet tea. mistaking recently illuminated streetlights for the moon. hearing

crickets. my mother and you, a small child, feeling realized.)