Even Now

Even now,
nine months after her death,
I wake up in the middle of the night
listening for the sound of the machine,
the echoes of the oxygen concentrator,
which sat
on the left side of her bed.

Even now,
I hear her voice call my name
and walk wearily down the hall
before I remember
that she now sleeps
beneath a rose colored headstone
in Palm Eastern Mortuary and Cemetery.