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I Came Home From College

By Shanlla Rhuya Remtulla (Engl’24) 

I come home from college
Our old dog is sick.
My mother wants to cook with me.
She wakes me up before the sun
tells me to cut and peel four potatoes.
I am profoundly angry
I have been woken up on a Saturday morning
the first Saturday in months that I am not working.
I called out of work because
Our old dog bears no physical ailment
But lacking in hunger. I suppose this is
not very alarming, he eats from our hands, sometimes,
he chases prey in his sleep, every so often
his tail rises and falls. But my mother
Who has watched me disappear–blinds shut eyes
Wide open, burning a hole in my bed, unshowered–
Knows that this is very grave.
I am boiling four potatoes and my mother has always
Been comfortable with death. Too comfortable.
When I die you’ll regret this, when I die you’ll wish
You would have listened, if you don’t finish school,
When I die, I’ll haunt the shit out of you.
I helped her write her will last week, accounted
For all of her possessions. This is just a part of life,
It is important to leave you with a plan, because I
Might not be here tomorrow. And here she is
a wilted paper doll feeding my old dog
a piece of potato from her hand, weeping,
asking me what we will do with his things.