My Loss

You evaporated from my life like water shrinking

From the cruel, demanding sunbeams.

We played with dolls, pictures, piano

Each holiday dinner marked by that thick Louisville accent

Until it was silenced by one icy winter word:

Inoperable.

Leg dragging, arm pumping, your soft chocolate eyes melting

Into tears from the pain, the shame of your

Swollen stomach and swollen cheeks.

The size of the mass weighed heavy on your mind, your spine, weighed heavy

On my heart.

And then a call, I cried, I sobbed

Eight years stolen, an innocent life

Vanished from the world,

From the pool of suffering, misery and pain.

An eight-year-old life freed by the warm spring breeze forcing

Me to take a look at my own

To take one closer look.