wasting into baggy skin
pointed bones
in place of full breasts
wide hips
strong arms
that used to cradle me
You lie
in your hospital bed
white face whiter
than hospital sheets
Pain lines replace
the crows-feet
(that you claimed added character)
I chase you
down labyrinth tunnels
of mists and floating figures
always one step behind
never close enough
to catch your pain
I hold you
in loving arms
the way a mother holds her child
the way a woman-child holds
her dying mother
Note: My poem "Requiem" was originally published, in a slightly different format, in "Solstice 2: The Truth and Fictions of Ageing", edited by A. Burke. ISBN 0-920689-06-X
Little did I know when I wrote that poem in 1989 that my mother's death in 2005 would so closely follow the lines I wrote. Was it a poem-premonition?
Posts
