It's been 3 years
and I'm reminded, again,
of the stark hospital white
and antiseptic stench
that would soon prove
how little I knew
about death
or what it meant ---
long white corridors
that stretch forever,
like a nightmare,
stretch to nothing.
I don't recall much, only
tubes, and the inhuman
wheeze of the
respirator.
Then learning,
after lunch,
she's gone. Like
a dropped knife
clattered on a hard
linoleum floor ---
then, stunned
silence.
It was May
and the heat,
oppressive, wavered
under the sun and
bounced off every
reflective surface.
We all climbed
into cars
and followed
the procession line
to the burial,
where some words
were half-said, and a hole
was hacked into the
soil. My
mind
was elsewhere
when they lowered her
coffin, to be sealed
with dirt forever.
Death, I could not grasp ---
then, it was over.
We all went
back home,
back to life.
❋ ❋ ❋
Only a couple days
before the hospital and
the tubes and death,
she brought a pot
of pink geraniums to
our house;
a mid-
spring gift.
My mother
told me later
CZYTASZ
Summer of Grief - Poems (Online Chapbook)
Poezja❝ then learning ... she's gone. Like a dropped knife clattered on a hard linoleum floor --- then, stunned silence. ❞ Poems of grief, loss, and healing, written from an intimate perspective. ❋ ❋ ❋ Summer of Grief - Poems (Online Cha...