OREN DYING
Oren, at the end of eighty winters,
head swollen from lung cancer like an old pumpkin,
struggles disoriented in his last bed,
hollers loudly and constantly Ma, Ma.
MA: virgin word of cowboys and Indians,
mother, meter, some sort of gauge or compass
for this measureless world tumbling like moonblood
to the first full moon of almost spring.
MA: with no more voice than a sheep has,
dying, he does not know enough to ask
why this last night is different from mothernights,
who was sacrificed for him at the feast of light.