Gwendolyn Brooks stood stark naked.I stared into her bespectacled eyes.Ms. Brooks showed me howto tend to myself by scrubbing dead skinwith a coarse wash cloth, rinsingthe body's detritus down a common drain.My flesh was taut, loose,and dying. Even in paradise I was dying.At first, this surprised me. Oh, the capsizedboat of the body, Wanda Coleman sighed.We keep sailing, even when we believewe're ashore. Coleman drifted to sleepon the heated jade floor. Claspingmy spa-provided robe, I lay on my sidebeside her. Do the deaddream? I wondered to myself.Wrong question, Coleman muttered.I remembered sleeping beside my mother,touching her nightgown lightly,as if a gesture could restore the cordthat, in the beginning, tethered us. As ifI smelled her death in the satin scarfkeeping the plastic curlers in place,or in the Vaseline glossing her arms.In childhood, I pined for my motherthough she was there.Here, in the afterlife, I had no mindto search for her. I was freedfrom a loss that haunted meeven before it occurred.Gwendolyn Brooks hummed a wordlesssong that stripped me of all longing.I untied the robe's stiff beltand walked amongst the nude women,my skin brushed smooth and silent.I was ordinary and motherless.Because I was not alone,my nakedness felt unremarkable.I didn't miss my mother—I didn't miss missing her.