Marcella Remund

Marcella Remund is from South Dakota, where she taught at the University of South Dakota. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals. Her poem “Caught” won first prize in the 2022 O’Bheal International Poetry Competition in Cork, Ireland. Her chapbook, The Sea is My Ugly Twin, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018. Her first full-length collection, The Book of Crooked Prayer, was published by Finishing Line in 2020. You can find more information and links to her books, at www.marcellaremund.com. 

What I Try To Believe

On Tuesdays, the hospice nurse strips Mother, bathes her in the hospital bed set adrift in the center of her bedroom. 
The nurse wraps a warm cloth around Mother’s chin, spa-like, washes under wrinkled folds where muscles once rose 
and fell. She lifts each of Mother’s hands so tenderly, enfolds them in her own, smooths in lavender lotion. 
She trims and paints Mother’s nails, gently powders her paper skin, diapers her, slips her in a nightgown cut open 
up the back to the collar, until Mother sinks again, small, into her bed of flannel roses. I have time those days 
to wash dishes, shower, fold laundry, but all I can do is hold my breath,stare into my mother’s glassy eyes 
and that nurse’s sweet, patient smile. You’re so lucky, the nurse always says, and every Tuesday, I try to believe her.

Marcella Remund

What I Try To Believe

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