Thursday 9 July 2015

Night

There is a stifled breath, a quietened fear. 
A heartbeat skipped.
She waits the night to take her up,
scoop her up to silvered moon.

There is a quiver to his voice,  
a loss of vocal strength,  
he fraught with angst and ancientness.    
He sits with her, beside her then,
takes her fingers in his gnarled and knotted hand,
grinding bone against her wedding band;
she winces then as yelp spills from those thin whitened lips.

He is mortified, beside himself,
consumed with guilt he drops her hand
and she screams she screams she screams. 
Oh Jesus I’m so so so so sorry, he cries
and rocks his moaning head in those knotty bony things
that once offered love, now only help rack up her pain.

He stands now, shuffles up aside the bed
til near enough to bend, plant the softest kisses on her head. 
And those gnarled and knotted hands,
now the gentlest and most loving things
comb his tears through sparse strands of hair
that lick her scalp as if clinging onto life.

She gurgles then. 
And he loses her.

She looks tiny now, a tiny doll,
white porcelain face, eyes black still pools. 

He wails as she dissolves into the night.

Anna :o]


Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons