(The Last Time I Held Her)
She was skin and bones, frail
as all skeletal remains become,
with every last breath of life
still sticking to her ribs. Every
exhale came with the burdened
anticipation of the next deep gasp.
Her eyes, a vacuous stare, looking
through me and seeing nothing but
a chance to finally go home to her rest.
Well past the need for words; or the
ability to express the same. Her face
contorted with each painful smile,
pleads in silence for one last embrace.
Wrapping my arms under her absence,
closing around her distance; squeezing
through my need to feel something,
only to fail miserably. A flame, extinguished
well before the light in her eyes had dimmed.
And I stood in her darkness, clinging
to the shadow of her and any lasting
memory that she had left me.
The last time that I held her
was my last goodbye.
© Copyright Walter J. Wojtanik – 2013
Written for NaPoWriMo – Day 6 – Write a Valedictory
THROUGH THE EYES OF A POET'S HEART 
“Wrapping my arms under her absence,
closing around her distance; squeezing
through my need to feel something,
only to fail miserably. ”
Oh, Walt … I’m not sure I’ve ever read a more touching, poetic phrase.
Marie Elena
…painful read…
Sad and beautiful. No matter how long the prologue,my experience in with passing of a soul, the immediacy of the absence is so hard to accept. This captures it very well.
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