Less

“Hate doesn’t discriminate.
It’s a tool for fools, and schools of thought, alike”
She said, from her bed, approaching the light.
Shriveled and riddled with life’s fiddles,
Her face struggled, through her diseased muddles, to tug at my heart’s puddles.
Shrunken, and sunk in, her eyes drunken with medicine,
Her sentences menaced the penances she spent.
The bedroom gloomed, like brooms sweeping too soon,
Before dust was thrust and settled where it must.
Her night shirt soon, would be her uniform for flight from her night’s pain.
The rain came, the same as it gamed before, without fame or blame,
but tonight, thunder would light the sight of her passing.
The first casting of the lasting mornings and evenings, of my mourning her.
Our reflection in the mirror behind her, had no detection of the affection inside,
that lay in splayed arrays of “not oks” and fitful brays.
She coughed with force, and seemed to toss remorse and sources of discourse of faith on course abandoned.
Wrinkled and dimpled, her ancient hand shook, and took mine with a final look.
“Smooth” she smiled.
While piled emotion, motioned through what remained within,
Wind cringed against the hinges, singeing my dingy tinge of heart’s impingement.
“Yes Nana” I agreed.
But my pleas won’t be heeded, or succeed.
Today is the way of it.
Bit by bit.
Not by quitting.
Smiles fade.
Lids close parades.
Breathing trades for stillness.
I confess, afterlife is a guess.
She’s gone, and I’m less.