My mother was not afraid
to talk about death.
"When it's my time to go,
let me go,"
she would say years before
it crossed our minds  that
she'd ever be going anywhere.

But others were going all the time.
Her brother the undertaker was always busy.
And the pack of prayer cards
in the drawer of the sideboard
grew thicker over the years.

St. Patrick, St Joseph, St. Anthony,
St. Theresa, and St. Cecelia,
all cozied together with a rubber band,
silently interceded for perpetual light
to shine upon a growing roster of familiar names:
aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, friends
who met their timely or untimely ends
and were sent off with
my mother's prayers at their wakes,

and for their survivors a lemon pound cake
or perhaps a Boston cream three-layered one
with chocolate filling and butter icing
on a plate with her name
- Jane McDonough -
taped to the bottom
so the plate could eventually
make its way back to her
in order to be sent out again.

"When it's my time to go,
let me go," she said, never fearing,
never shying from the inevitable,
so familiar had she become
with this biggest of life's mysteries.

And I cannot think of
people dying in Woodbridge
without thinking of all those cakes
my mother so generously and masterfully
made for the grieving so that,
when Death came to call,
no  one would be left
with a bitter taste in his mouth.


This poem first appeared in Paterson Literary Review (2018, Issue 46).
Used here with permission.