Amy Winehouse is Dead

She slumped at the kitchen table, 
face pocked with scabs.
She hadn't been home for nine months.
Refused to tell me where she'd been.

Mommy, can I come home? 

My daughter, on the eve
of her twenty-seventh birthday. 

Now, I check her breathing while she sleeps, 
Wake her to make sure she's alive. 

She shuffles through the morning kitchen
on the way to her back-porch cigarette.
In her ratty green bathrobe
she grins at me through the window 
blowing smoke, singing along.