He reaches across a decade
Bearing letters with no stamps:
I wrote to you like you were there
I was there.
He handed me pages
Or did he?
I remember
But never saw them again.
I look up
To a glimmer
Of tears that are waiting
But his arm is cold, unmoving
His gaze fixed in space
I think of my mother,
who was his wife
She said
Dying would have been better
That would not have been a choice
Her lips, thin and lifeless
Pained, somewhat, like death,
Eyebrows arched in righteousness
Her big revenge.
2005
