Where Did You Go?
So finally, it slipped out of you like a prayer
the flickering breath that kept you alive
all through your injured life.
I watched how life could dissolve in a moment
a hurried walk across the road
an eon of shared living and loving folded up into a mundane piece of laundry,
your face was still an imitation of life
eyes still a wee bit open
like during the humid afternoons, you slept away your tiredness.
In my mind, I have not felt your death
I stare at yellowing pictures, slowly mottling with age
and sit in empty rooms to touch your presence
the bedsheets, in slightly dented pillows that once held your stubborn, sensitive head,
and whisper into the dimly lit ether air.
I smell your perfumes on the dressing table
that failed to camouflage the hospital’s antiseptic scent.
In sleep, I sometimes meet you, the other night you were full of smiles
reminding me that I had done what needed to be done,
allowed my sixty-year-old mother to become my last child.
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