Dusk

and the sun becomes nothing.
Air hissing out like a beachball,
collapsing at the horizon. I remember
my mother telling me it was illusion,

that the sun stayed still, and it was
the earth turning away. I didn’t
believe her. If the earth was spinning,

I said, I would have been knocked down
flat. She didn’t answer, but disappeared
into the next room. Now, it is years later,
afternoon nursing home, and I still don’t

trust my mother. I don’t believe her empty
eyes, her flaccid mouth that can’t even say
my name. I am watching her sink into
the horizon, her life flattened, her death
waiting to blow up like a beach ball
and send her hissing out of my sight

while I remain left behind, unmothered
now, and spinning in place.