In memory of all those who went too soon – claimed by a virus that was as brutal as it was indiscriminate…
Cut adrift from you
buffeted by winds
of a malevolent fate
icicles of fear
pierce a heart
that stuttered
the day they put
a plastic tube
down your throat…
Even the heat
of a fearsome anger
that rages at the edges
of a mind grown numb
cannot warm the emptiness
that I clothe with memories
of a former life
when forever meant
a long, long time…
But for us it ended yesterday
and all I have left
are ashes in an urn;
an agony of disbelief;
roiling oceans of regret;
and a dark despair…
Your walking shoes don’t know yet
they wait by the door
for 6 o’clock.
I try them on…
too big to fill, they don’t fit
but you fit me so well
and now the cavernous cracks
in my being
that you kept from widening
tear me into pieces
of a puzzle that
makes no sense without you
and your pillow
– with memory foam –
barely remembers
the shape of your head
while mine still carries
a stray hair from your tossing and turning
as you strove to find the air
that eluded you
just before
they took you
to the ICU…
I had never imagined
that you’d go in one door
but you’d come out another…
I capture the last bit of your DNA
off my pillow
and add it to my collection
of memories that
– try as they may –
cannot fill the void
in my soul
that should be in your outline
but is now me-shaped.
