Saying goodbye

The flesh drained back on to the pillow

so his nose poked up surprising, sharp,

a single flower placed beside his head,

below his green-pyjama’d shoulders –

fragile, like a child laid lovingly to sleep.

There were signs his nose had bled –

otherwise he looked tidy and so still.

His eyes were closed, his mouth fixed

wide open in a grimace of false teeth;

his beard neat, the hair above his ears

curlier, more playful than I’d thought.

On Sunday afternoons, a child,

I’d stared so often at his sleeping chest,

convinced the next breath wouldn’t come,

that now I stared again and waited –

unwilling to believe that chest was still forever –

for him to say, ‘Hello, dear – is it tea-time yet?’

Beyond the window I looked out of,

to the outside world opaque,

unknown unknowing people crossed the carpark,

visiting – leaving – friends or relatives,

deliberately jolly, insultingly alive –

as though some other outcome could be theirs.

 

©Virginia Rounding, 1994

First published in Orbis No.99, Winter 1995