The world seemed different
after he died from cancer.
Altered, in the way the air,
the sky, the earth, the stars are
after any creature has left the world.
The cancer was all that everyone
thought about,
It was a heavy book with no surprise ending.
A book you could not convince yourself
to finish.
There was a need to
do battle, to arm ourselves
against the inevitable.
We held our breath,
but we shared no hope.
Cancer was
an imposing friend.
For dying is almost always two-dimensional,
the evil of disease abd the mercy after.
For our half-sister it was
facing death for the first time.
For us,
it was confronting the demise
of someone who sired, terrorized and
abandoned us until finally redeeming
us through his final suffering.
It was an expected denouement,
and a kind of Crucifixion.
We chose our last words
like we would chose the best piece of pie,
serving them like desert.
They were served up with a dollop of
mutual pain.
The kind that could bring about a
transformation: his broken body, our long memories
would intermingle, and become defused,
intermittent starlight.
I wondered at the difference
he had made in our lives
and at the difference
there would be when he was
a dimming ember in our pasts.
And wondered too at how
quickly the coming years
could bury him, his pain, our pain,
finally, and at last.
Copyright October 7, 2011. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR
MELISSA A HOWELLS MELOO OF TILT-A-WORLD
