Our Forlorn Hope

​
We both knew this time would come,
but I grab for you anyway. Heading outside,
you pass through walls leaving thin-lit rooms
with only the sound of the oxygen machine.
Your sister flips it off. How can you be sure?
I gasp and turn it back on. Your spirit dances
across lichen-claimed, butternut branches,
drawing squirrels from hollows to join you.
(You always swore your pets were wild--mine
domestic.) Drifting to your favorite Adirondack
 to take in the lawn we cleared, you sing
Our Forlorn Hope from your suite:
You and I are going home today on a trail
that's strange to us both.

I run around like a creature caught between life
and death, call hospice, the funeral home, then fall
silent on your still chest, begging you to take me home.




​
Again II


Every moment fills with your last five days,
flies into me like Venus' arrows, porcupine quills
that can't be extracted without barbs cutting
deeper. Pain keeps you with me. I used to bargain
with Jesus and Buddha to promise this be my last
life, thinking I'd perfected suffering. Now that I'm sure 
of it, all I want is to come back. We'll meet younger
and have our little Phoebe this time, and a son
destined for drumming. Remember
when you used to bite my nose ever so gently?
Can you do that again?