My Mother’s Death Is a Government Disaster

My Mother’s Death Is a Government Disaster

DisasterAssistance.gov

Four thousand eight hundred
for the preparation of the body
+ three thousand seven hundred
ninety-five for the casket +
nine hundred eighty for the grave
liner + five hundred to open and close
the earth + four hundred twenty-five
for something called a vault
service charge + twelve hundred
for two plots including one
for my father who was still
alive + one hundred for prayer
cards + three hundred forty-one
dollars and twenty-five cents
sales tax. Disclaimer: We do not
warrant or claim that the vault
you are purchasing is watertight.
The stone cost four thousand
four hundred eighty-four dollars
+ three hundred thirteen dollars
and eighty-eight cents sales tax,
bringing the total cost
of my mother’s death
to sixteen thousand nine hundred
thirty-nine dollars and thirteen cents,
not counting, of course, the cost
of therapy and the cost
of her empty slippers by the door
and the cost of my father
no longer able to sleep
in the bed he’d shared with her
and many other costs beyond dollars
and sense. But the United States
had calculated that my mother’s life,
rather her death, was worth nine
thousand dollars, thereby decreasing
the actual cost to seven thousand nine hundred
thirty-nine dollars and thirteen cents,
that is, if my father uploaded
to DisasterAssistance.gov the required
paperwork: receipts for the aforementioned
goods and services and a certificate
of death that listed the causes.
I helped my father by scanning
the documents, making sure to include
my mother’s disaster number,
and then we waited. The expiration
date was approaching, but my father
had heard nothing. When he called, a robot
said: You are very important to us.
We’re experiencing a high volume
of calls. Please stay on the line. Your wait
time is approximately three hours
forty-two minutes. My father waited
two hours twelve minutes before the line
went dead. This is their plan, my father said.
They want you to give up, to miss
the deadline. Well, I’m ready to hold
forever. He called back, and fell asleep
while holding, and hours later woke
to a human voice, who told him that the death
certificate was blurry: acute respiratory failure
looked like a cute respite allure 
and coronavirus pneumonia looked like
crown us new mania and the manner of death 
was natural but the boxes for accident,
pending investigation, and could not be
determined seemed to have some kind
of mark beside them, and in order
for them to process my father’s application,
we would need to upload the death certificate
with higher resolution, and we had failed
to upload the back of the certificate.
ORIGINAL DOCUMENT HAS A MULTI-
COLORED BACKGROUND ON SPECIAL
WHITE SECURITY PAPER AND THE GREAT
SEAL OF THE STATE OF INDIANA ON BACK
THAT TURNS FROM ORANGE TO YELLOW
WHEN RUBBED. ORIGINAL DOCUMENT
HAS A HIDDEN VOID ON FRONT
THAT APPEARS WHEN PHOTOGRAPHED.
We tried again, and my father called
to make sure it had been received
and could be read, but a robot told him the wait
was now seven hours seven minutes. The robot
was very sorry about the increasing volume
of calls. They want to bleed the clock,
my father told me. They want you to assume
everything’s okay only for you to find out
a day late that it’s too late. Just before the dead-
line, he got through to a human, not the same
human he’d spoken with before, who confirmed
that my mother’s death certificate was now
clear, and three months later my father received
a check for nine thousand dollars, which he used
to buy an automatic generator. After my mother
died, my father slept in an electric chair
that reclined to elevate his diabetic legs
and stood him up in the morning. He was afraid
of getting stuck. One night, a storm knocked out
the power. The generator kicked in and the house
came back to life: the lights on the Christmas tree
blinked, and voices from the TV,
which my father kept on twenty-four hours
a day, filled the room’s silence. I need
to have it on, my father told me, but only sports
and sitcoms. No news, no drama, nothing heavy.
ORIGINAL POEM HAS A WHITE
BACKGROUND ON RECYCLED PAPER
AND THE GREAT SEAL OF THE MISTAKE
OF 2020-2023 ON BACK THAT TURNS
RED WHEN RUBBED. ORIGINAL
HAS A HIDDEN VOID BETWEEN EVERY LINE
AND BETWEEN EVERY WORD. TO SEE
THE VOID WILL COST YOU
SIXTEEN THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED
THIRTY-NINE DOLLARS AND THIRTEEN
CENTS TIMES ONE POINT TWO MILLION.

Quiet Quit

Didn’t bother to set an alarm or make the bed.
      Coffee grew cold in my cup

while toast burned. Fruit flies swarmed a bowl
      of bananas turned black. 

Dozed on the toilet, book on my lap. Forgot
      to brush my teeth, forgot the wash a week,

had to soak the reek from toe-holed socks.
      Forgot my mother’s phone number.

Didn’t bother to tie my laces, fell on my face,
      chipped two teeth. Let the car run out of gas.

Let the inspection expire. Let the milk expire,
      ate cereal dry. A nap turned into a two-day sleep.

Then the first buds broke. Catkins of alder trees,
      cuckoo and bluebell bloom.

Crowned my teeth, darned my socks.
      Pulled weeds, mulched the base of the alder,

didn’t bother to wash from my hands the smell
      of wood chips, pine straw, moss. My mother

is buried far away, so I use Google Earth
      to visit her grave, and the house where she lived,

and the hospital parking lot where I slept
      in my car and woke to sirens and snow.

I’m trying to make my bed and brush my teeth.
      I’m trying to remember her voice

before her lungs quit. Song sparrows fly twigs
      to the flowerbed outside my window.

This morning in overgrown grass under light rain,
      a butterfly alighted on my face.