My mother's house was
a place of comfort,
a place of memories,
where I grew up.
Then I put her in
a nursing home.
She didn't remember
her house anymore.
Now my mother's house is mine,
but I don't want to go there.
I try to stay away.
It's not home anymore;
My mother isn't there.
There's only memories of how I failed,
and guilt because I'm not still trying
to make her house her home.

Written March 1996
Copyright © 1996-2002 Brenda Parris Sibley
Published in Waiting for the Morning (Writer's Club Press/iUniverse, 2001)