For My Mother, Frances R. Vasquez (1931-2013)

My mother died on Saturday, March 9, 2013.  The following poem is for her who gave six children their lives--no greater gift yet devised on the planet since the universe exploded.

On the Day the Universe Ends

for Frances R. Vasquez

1931-2013

On the day the universe ends

 the sky shuts down, inundated

 by pneumonia's lung-borne flood,

for no ark drifts to shore.

 What songs the sparrows improvise

from branches to bowed power lines

go unsung, unplugged,

for no one monitors their jagged notes.

All the boys in grass-stained jeans

ladder down from tree houses,

chilled from the night's starless elms,

for the cold rungs give out like breath.

And the girls?  The girls know

what their ancestors knew, baptized

over the cistern's veined, mortal waters

on the day the universe ends.

--Robert Vasquez