You Are Going Away

Waiting. We are satellites turning around The white planet of your bed. Your eyes are full of the light of your life Yet fear in them Sparks, igniting our own helplessness. Where will you go, we ask ourselves, When the light has been doused; When will we speak, touch, be with you again? The impossibility of a universe without you Looms above and around us, crouching and waiting To encroach. In each of us there is a grief, As individual as our own selves, Big as a tsunami gathering out at sea. I feel the wave of it in me, A power bigger than myself Yet I cannot tap into it to help you. You lie in your bed of snow, Pale, astonished skin on snow pillow, hair so white it vanishes. The clatter of our questions falls around you; Broken china on the floor. I look into a bed nearby And see a corpse looking back at me; it waves. I look back at you and you smile. A shudder starts somewhere so deep down That I cannot imagine the place. You have no tears, you tell me, you have grief. I want tears so that I can be useful, Dry your eyes. I feel abnormal, standing there Legs firmly planted, Head in that unimaginable, shuddering place. I leave, taking my horror with me. Written January 24th, 2002 © on Jan 23 2002 11:49 PM PST   0 • 1