Momma’s voice leads me through the fogof her life with Ester—the small happeningsbetween them, between us, betweentime, slow moving time, spinning us forgetful.I am with her in the stillness of the gray stonehouse—the small beast—coughing Ester’slife from the corners, we are here to collect her.How out of place, her life here.Here where the suns’ hand reachesbut doesn’t touch, where the scent of her wiltingplants fill us, opening the pores in momma’s heart.How do you breath in the death of yourmother’s life?Momma’s voice so cold with mourningin the dimmed dark of this memory,how she has opened it for me, a selflessgift, how I hear her come undone by it.Little by little, Mommadusting off the gown Esterslept in, and the trace of her skin there,lingering in this life, even in the gray, lingering.How tight we hold—white knuckledand slipping away—againstthe pulling of time. ____Mireidys Garcia has a MA in Publishing from Emerson College. Born in Cuba and raised in Miami, FL, within close distance of the sea, she mimics that familiar fluidity of the ocean in her work while also capturing the sudden rupture of a wave. A writer of poetry, fiction, and memoir, she plays with combining genres and incorporating media into her work. Mireidys is a production assistant at Hackett Publishing, an award-winning designer, and a bookbinder.