Catch by Allison Cobb

What moment was

the moment 

my mom died. 

We weren’t sure

my dad and I—

we hold that

hard gift close

between—the

us that makes 

us selves who

stood beside 

her birdlike

curled in—

Oh. It is 

a moment—breath

and then

it stops—that’s

real, declare

the time—we had

a clock there, red

with numbers—

Mom. She left

before. I held

her hand, no

living touch 

came back. She left

before her breath—

I never

past self would have

written this—

naïve I thought

to cling to souls 

of individuals, like characters

in books. We’re 

bones and flesh and maybe

light I thought—no

more we just 

disintegrate

to light and dirt—

we do I think, but Mom

that one

specific form

remains. Or did. 

Or does—Hi

Mom I joking

half say Hi

she says it 

back—but not

in speech she—

here she’s not in

speech or space or

words crunch

bone too

animal, too

fixed but she 

communicates

in feel force—

9/11 anniversary 

when I woke I felt 

her soft around embrace—

Much earlier, days after

she had died, my dad

went cycling through guilt

for all the things he’d failed

her in life—the ice he left

outside, she slipped

and broke her shoulder—

Speeding down the freeway as he spoke, 

I rode behind him in the sun

along the river—fast-force 

then I felt her

shake it off as 

nothing, like a fly

on horseflesh—Pah!

It’s nothing! Flick it off!

a shake and then a leap

like joy, I knew

my sister felt it 

too my dad too

sunk in self in

grief. I feel just

joy from

her, my sister

said it gently and with 

love for all

his hurt. But I felt

something else—her

bursting fierce

impatience for 

our joining her

in joy, it crackle

sparks—catch

it 

says catch

up

*

Allison Cobb is the author of After We All Died (Ahsahta Press); Plastic: an autobiography (Essay Press EP series, with a full-length edition forthcoming from Nightboat Books); Born2 (Chax Press); and Green-Wood, originally published by Factory School with a new edition in 2018 from Nightboat Books. Cobb’s work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and many other journals. She was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and National Poetry Series; has been a resident artist at Djerassi and Playa; and received fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Cobb works for the Environmental Defense Fund and lives in Portland, Oregon, where she co-hosts The Switch reading, art, and performance series and performs in the collaboration Suspended Moment.