Guy I know was visiting his mom
when she died suddenly, and when
I asked him how he was doing,
he said he was grieving, sure,
but was also pissed at the cops
because they said his mom’s bedroom
was a crime scene, making him
a criminal. Which is not how it works:
another friend who is a police officer
said no, what we say is cause of death
unknown, because even when
you find yourself looking at a bloody corpse,
you don’t know how it got that way.
Everyone thinks “Something in the Way
She Moves” is about Patti Boyd,
but George Harrison says I wasn’t thinking
about Patti when I wrote that song—
I was thinking about Ray Charles.
‍Guy’s mom had had a stroke, of course;
the coroner could tell that just by looking
at her. She’d dressed, had breakfast,
read her Bible, decided to lie down
for a minute before driving to work,
and that’s how her son found her:
hair done, hose and shoes on, hands
resting on her stomach, purse
by her side, eyes open like she was
trying to figure it all out, he said.