My mother, poor woman, lies tonight in her last bed.
Perhaps for her it's snowing through her darkness.
I swallow down the goodbyes I'll not
get to use, round and tasteless, with wretched mouth water.
She and I, whatever we were, we are nearly cured.
And leaving my last class of junior high school
students in Pittsburgh, the youngest of them
runs after me in the snow.
"Goodbye," she cries.
It is snowing.
Her face is crossed by the snow.
The snow will snow, tears will spill.
History will give each of them a map of the human face.
There is nothing to say.
The street is empty.
Down there, at that corner, Sibyl, the youngest
of my darlings, caught up with me once and hugged me
and told me goodbye.