Remembering My Mother's Dying Breaths On This Mother's Day

The room is a square. Walls colored some shade of clay. There is a bed, two chairs, and a window. Sitting on the side table is a jug of water and some white Styrofoam cups. At the front of the room, under the television that does not work, a narrow counter with magazines and bags piled high.

I’m sitting on one of the chairs, looking across the room and out the window, watching the warm breath of brick buildings smoke up into the winter’s cold sky. My mother is lying on the bed in front of me, head tilted slightly up, slowly dying.

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