LAST TIME HE SAW HER.

A MAN'S FAREWELL TO HIS DEAD MOTHER.

The last time Benedict

saw his mother

she was lying

in a hospital bed,

eyes closed, mouth

slightly open, dead.

He'd been told by a nurse

over the phone of her demise,

the voice matter of factly

pronounced the words,

the meaning came in later.

He thought of her, whom

he'd seen the evening before,

the last smile and wave

she'd given, although held

by dementia she seemed

aware he( or someone) was there.

Now she had gone, moved

to a spirit world he assumed

or hoped, although he sensed

her loss, like a ripping apart

and smash grab of his heart.

He had, he recalled, kissed

her forehead the last time

that evening prior, the skin

cool, wrinkled less, seeming

at rest. 91 years old was not

a bad innings he supposed,

holding onto that final image

of the previous evening, not

the final one where her body

lay deserted, the emptied shell,

that usual sickly hospital smell.

No, he wanted the last image

to be of her smiling and waving,

not drowning sickly, but saying

a goodbye, seeing half-blindly,

that look in her eye, seeming

to say: we all come, all must die.

He still feels the loss, the empty

place in his heart, the vacant lot,

but the memories cram into the little

boxes in his brain, a holding on,

till, hopefully, happier, they meet again.