tide is low.

1.  As far as anyone was concerned, my mother was a mute from the day she could speak.  From the day I was born, I knew her as silence.  I would identify her by her breathing.  As a baby, pressed firmly against her chest at all times, I came to know her like no other had ever tried.  Her breaths were steady; deep and defined.
In; Tide is high.
Out; Tide is low.
I pictured her heartbeats like fishes, rattling the waves.

2.  My mother owned no books.  It has been debated whether or not she would be able to read them, with her inability to speak wearing her down like the absense of glasses to blind eyes.  But on our walls, where we placed no bookshelves, there were paintings.  To everyone just looking, they appear as vague as parking lots.  But I let my eyes swim in them.  Some as blue as blueprints, I see detail.
The only time my mother released me was to paint.  She watched me the whole time, and I, her.  Imagining each stroke was an idea she could never vocalize.

So people lie about her paintings, only because they don't know the truth.  These canvases re-enact our life.

3 a).  I come to the ocean daily.  It reminds me of her.

4.  The last day of my mothers life was alot like the first year of mine.
Lying in a bed of waves.
Head to her chest in listening.
In early rememberance.
In; Tide is high.
Out;  Tide is low.

5.  My mothers last look was one of safety.  Made me feel like every time I left the softness of her breast, I was leaving her to drown.
Almost as if foreshadowing, she held me in her gaze, treading in the color of my blue eyes,
And in one of her last tired breaths, she said

"Michael"

In; Tide is high.
Out; Tide is low.
In; Tide is high.
Out; Tide is low.
Tide is low.
Tide is low.
Tide is low.

3 b).  I come to the ocean daily.  It reminds me of her.  I watch the tides, and thank science like a God, for never letting me remember her death.