Your Voice

     -to Ethel Greene (1929-2020)

Your voice is stuck in my head, Mom—
not your dying voice that whispered

above the electric hum of the hospital room,
but your Brooklyn voice, the ghetto

twang of poverty and regret, the sweep
of a broom in front of the candy store

where you’d roller-skate. It’s the voice
of never enough and disapproval,

of anger buried inside the Yiddish
spoken at home, the same voice

that tried me in the court of daughterhood
and found me guilty, the voice

that took me in your arms, told me
that you loved me, even when

it wasn’t true. And now on the anniversary
of your death, I find myself

listening to your last voicemail,
asking me to call you, telling me

it’s nothing important, even though it is.
Mom, your voice still punishes me,

sending me back to my childhood
bedroom, where I find myself again,

hurting and alone, yet never
able to delete you or let you go.