Hospice

The ghastly details

--sunken cheeks, jutting joints, knotted blood veins

standing in stark relief against the diaphanous delicacy of her ashen skin

shocked me into mute horror.

Her raspy voice told me a story.

Somtimes an exhalation of an “o” that sufficed for “hello”

left me to think once again:

It is time to say Good Bye.

But if I leave, who will l listen to her stories?

But if I go, who will open the perpetually closed curtains?

So I tell her.

I'll be back, i'll be back.

But next time you see me, I will be wearing a white gown.