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To My Mama, in Starlight’s Embrace
Oh, Mama, my soul’s bleeding wound in the bayou’s mournful hush,
Where fireflies flicker like sobs through cypress, choked with dusk’s cruel crush.
Dementia’s savage fog devoured your eyes’ once-radiant flame,
And I’m left clawing at your shadow, heart shredded, screaming your name.
In our Texas log refuge, where ancient oaks groan with grief’s heavy load,
Two homes, stitched close on red-clay earth, where my tears’ rivers flowed,
Near Lafayette’s pulse, where fiddles wail dirges through the night’s despair,
You lingered, a ghost of yourself, your mind unraveling in the air.
No tests could you face, though the mist’s talons tore at your fragile core,
Your silence a knife, twisting deeper, as dawn’s hope bled no more.
In Alexandria’s Pinewood, where iron gates slammed like a mourner’s curse,
They branded you childlike, thirteen, your spirit caged, a fate perverse.
A year in that sterile tomb, your laughter ground to ash and bone,
While I, a trembling girl, cradled my siblings, lost in a world unknown.
Your husband—my stepfather—banished you, his heart a jagged, rusted blade,
Stole Daddy’s coins, our lifeline, leaving us to starve, betrayed.
Daddy, chained by schizophrenia’s thorns since twenty-one, fled when I was four,
While that man’s fists broke us—your spirit, mine, my sister’s—‘til we could bear no more.
He ran to California, spawning thirteen dens of filth to mock our pain,
I forgave, as faith demands, but his casket was a void where grief’s chains remain.
Through desert’s blistering sorrow, I drove you to his end, eyes averted from his shell.
Sundowners sank claws deep, Mama, your mind a firefly crushed in night’s cruel jaw,
Each fading thought a fresh gash, each memory a wound too raw.
To Utah you staggered, chasing my stepsister’s promise, a fleeting, hollow star,
But her venom—your wrist shattered once in her rage—left scars that stretch too far.
Cast out, you roamed, your car a frail coffin beneath skies bleeding despair,
A month of exile, ‘til a broken ankle screamed truths too cruel to bear.
The hospital named your thief—dementia’s relentless, bone-deep theft—
They called me, heart in shards, as your breath dwindled, bereft.
She lied, hid you from me, claimed we shunned you in your darkest hour,
And spun lies of our care,
But ‘twas her, once left you in Walmart’s
barren lot, where hope’s last spark lost power.
I fought, Mama, with ink, coin, and blood, an attorney’s oath to wrest you home,
To Louisiana’s embrace, where love could shield you from the storm.
The court loomed close, my soul aflame, victory a heartbeat’s fleeting chance,
But you slipped to the stars, one breath before, leaving my heart to break its lance.
In Covid’s iron grip, we knelt outside your window’s cold divide,
Voices straining through the glass, no touch ‘til life had ebbed inside.
You bore no plague, yet rules decreed this final, aching theft—
Our goodbyes a hollow echo, amplifying grief’s endless depth.
Now, in this verse, I carve you in starfire, raw and unyielding, yet gone,
Beyond fog’s merciless grip, where my screams for you still burn on.
You’re my Acadian root, moss-draped, blood-soaked, defying grief’s cruel tide,
A saga of love unbowed, like fireflies blazing where sorrow’s shadows bide.
I read you I Love You Forever, voice splintered by lantern’s dying glow,
Each word a wail, a galaxy spun to bind your soul, to let you know.
Forgive those who broke you; my fight raged fierce, a daughter’s desperate plea,
Now rest, mind unshackled, in heavens where moonlight mourns with me.
To the moon’s weeping cradle, my love howls through the void’s unending ache,
Dear Mama, my eternal wound, I’ll bleed for you ‘til my own heartbreaks.
Now rest, clear of mind, in eternity’s light.
To the moon and beyond, my love will not wane.
Forever, in anguish’s grip,
S.M. Ulbrich
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