Halfway into the next room

shiv

Shapeless sleeping lump
Under the covers
Guard rails up

Watch dangling on your arm
Up by your elbow
Keeping time in this horrific limbo

Nails painted coral
In perfect condition
Your skin still unlined
Just sunken in

Picture of your sister
Propped up
On the wardrobe
In case you surface from

Your separate beds marriage
Old age rage

Held like a fist inside your heart
As it fails and slows
Each breath the mask helps
You push out

Unlike last words that won’t form
For those of us around you
Left hanging on to a shell

+

Death slipped into your schema softly
In between booking the ticket and lift-off
You couldn’t wait for prodigal children to return
One last time

After you’d turned your hearing aid off
Lost it completely
Five years ago
Nearly to the day

Growing older
Being on your own
No longer the centre of the family universe

Hair flat back
Patchy white
Old accident bumps visible
To my stroking hand

Calling out for your dead mother
Turning away from visiting priests
Hiding your hands under the blankets
During at least three last rites
Did you feel the beads around your neck?

Blush_01

Wow. I really like this.

celticwarriorjb

I am a tool.