She should have been a singer

maybe singing harmony with Emmylou or Joni – she never wanted to sing the melody—

except that one time I begged her to sing the national anthem before the final game

she took the cordless mic and sang in the dark under the bleachers

hidden yet soaring

She shifts in the passenger seat, leans to turn the radio up, harmonizes briefly

Speaking words of wisdom

Let it be

  her voice cracks with pain

my father reaches for her hand

this man, this love, this disaster

that derailed her dreams, turned a singer into a homemaker, an explorer into a mother, her tune

morphed into a vessel for the life they built

As she fed us from her abundant

Garden

learned how to and then helped butcher chickens she didn’t eat

nightly after dinner she snuck into the

kitchen, turned up Nanci on the Bose,

placed her hands against her ears and

SANG

I walk her into the hospital as my father parks the car, escort her to the radiation floor where they will

make her sicker to make her better, where they will rob her of her singing voice, leaving only room for moans of pain

She should have been a singer