Loss

 

Delicate diamond earrings you

gave me on my 18th birthday

flicker, shimmer each day

through strands of my hair.

 

Your mind, clear as

a high mountain lake,

sparkled just as brilliantly --

then things changed.

 

Your long-term memory

vanished, yet it’s not clear

there are only three weeks

left to know you...

 

I go to you each day,

eat, sleep,

change my clothes --

but never the diamonds.

 

Then one night

snagged on my winter sweater –

diamond lost!

Searching I fear --

 

I will no longer find you here

tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Double Loss

 

As I come to see

you’ll never share my sorrow,

never fully know me,

sadness is a lasting glaze

upon my face.

My lungs

a frozen river of grief

with no sea

to empty into.

You decline

to dance the dance

of mortality with me

and I’m left 

alone

on the dance floor

with my dying father.

You watch for weeks

from the sidelines

as if sorrow and loss

are contagious, and you

must avoid exposure.

Your distance is clear,

sharp

like a dagger

thrown from afar

it pierces layers of tissue

to the hollow

of my heart. 

I struggle

to dress my gaping wound

to keep from bleeding-out

my life

 

at the loss of both of you.

 

 

 

 

 

The Eve of Your Dying

 

Like the rumble and crackling

of a stormy night sky when

trees billow and wildlife quake,

 

your full-body seizures cause

the bedrails to shudder,

your pained voice to echo

thru the canyon of your chest.

 

As if gentle words would override

the physiology of dying,

I serenade the lesions in your brain

with sweet talk, prayer,  yet

 

the landscape of your passing

arrives unbidden and remains,

and death-hour-soother, Morphine,

wins her place at your side.

 

Still, it is my heart, in my hand,

holding yours that

makes the difference.

*     *     *