American Life in Poetry

Nebraska's Ted Kooser, U.S. poet laureate from 2004 to 2006, offers "American Life in Poetry," a column on contemporary poetry.

Carol L. Gloor is an attorney living in Chicago and Savanna, Ill. I especially like this poem of hers for its powerful ending, which fittingly uses the legal language of trusts and estates.

Moment

At the moment of my mother's death

I am rinsing frozen chicken.

No vision, no rending

of the temple curtain, only

the soft give of meat.

I had not seen her in four days.

I thought her better,

and the hospital did not call,

so I am fresh from

an office Christmas party,

scotch on my breath

as I answer the phone.

And in one moment all my past acts

become irrevocable.

Poem copyright ©2010 by Carol L. Gloor, whose chapbook is "Giving Death the Raspberries," Thorntree Press, 1991. Poem reprinted from Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Vol. 25, No. 3, Winter 2010, by permission of Carol L. Gloor and the publisher.

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