Baking With My Mother

Baking with my mother

My mother used to bake cookies with me when I was young
Intricate designs of coloured icing that varied with the seasons.
They were always perfect and looked far to good to suffer the crime of eating.

For half a century I always baked cookies for the holidays
Whilst my children grew tall and independent with no apparent 
Interest in baking 

As the pale blue winter light falls into my kitchens I see myself
Cutting shapes and painting colours a silhouette on the shadows of the wall.

Placing the last cookie into a Christmas scene can I
Arive at the hospital and sit next to her in the ICU
I see her frailness the alarm in her eyes as she recognises me
But is yet unable to enunciate her thoughts.

Silence as loud as thunder fills the room the seams of the walls
are stretched to their limits.
The outer limits beep of the monitor acknowledging her heartbeats
Counting down each one until the last.

I miss our intimacy in that long ago kitchen
And  the random thought enters my mind 
I am her only child and she is my only mother.

The monitor rings an alarm a code blue
Signalling the end of her like the end of a football match.
I feel the loss of her like a razor blade cutting my flesh.

And as I leave her for the last time
There seems to be a mortality in the measured unknown days ahead
 and the cans of cookies yet to be baked.