After the vessel burst in my mother’s brain,
after she lay in the hospital for days,
after her three weeks of rehab,
we bundled her, still dazed and dizzy,
into her winter coat
and into her new wheelchair
and down and out the double doors
to the snow-lined walkway,
where she said,
Oh!

I stopped pushing, leaned around to see
her face. What is it? What’s wrong?
She said it again, more slowly:
Ohhhhh
and touched her gloved hand to her cheek.
Is it your teeth?
She shook her head.
She was looking past me,
eyes distant, beginning to tear.
The air, she said.
Fresh
air.