Louise Glück - Nocturne

Mother died last night,

Mother who never dies.

Winter was in the air,

many months away

but in the air nevertheless.

It was the tenth of May.

Hyacinth and apple blossom

bloomed in the back garden.

We could hear

Maria singing songs from Czechoslovakia—

How alone I am—

songs of that kind.

How alone I am,

no mother, no father—

my brain seems so empty without them.

Aromas drifted out of the earth;

the dishes were in the sink,

rinsed but not stacked.

Under the full moon

Maria was folding the...