There are people who, when they go, shift
             the meaning of words we use each day.

                                                             Down goes Frazier,
we used to joke, when sleep knocked our daughter out.

             Now Frazier’s dead,
                        and Megan’s mom is dying of the same cancer.

On the phone last night, Megan was a baby.
                                                                   So many new words
she needed to say, but no better way to speak than by crying.

                        A wrack of grief we used to say,
                                                           meaning shipwreck
          souls sunk, lost
                                 fortune, meaning ruin.

Though wrack can also mean seaweed, vegetation,
                        can mean what grows up from what has fallen.

A whale fall can support life for over seven decades.
                        The grotesque
and beautiful blooming

                        off a mortal behemoth.
                                                           Bone-rooted worms

waving like marsh grasses.
            Hagfish, all saw-mouth and mucous.
                                                                    Brittle stars.

             When she got her words again, Megan said the worst of it
was that her mother was still driving her crazy.
                                                                    I want to kill her,
             said Megan. Does she always have to be so controlling?
The morning she chose to join us, my daughter pushed against me.
                          My whole body, becoming a mother,
squeezed, trying to help push her along.
                                                        And what could she do
but push against me again?

                                                Down goes Frazier, we joked
because she fought so hard to be alive she hated ever to leave us.

Once, my whole body, becoming a mourner, had to push my girl out,
                          to let her go. Like this
we’ll be pushing each other, until one of us is finally done.