I know you're dying in Gulfport
or maybe Biloxi.
Getting visitors that no one else can see.
He feeds you the hospice trays,
then goes home and sleeps in your bed.

I keep waiting for the call
that will give me permission to grieve.
It's all been half-measures 'til now.
The phone rings every night,
so bright and cheerful and full of inevitability,
but it's never for me. It's never you.

I will spread your ashes into the bay
so you can dive once again
with your lithe brother, the surfer,
and melt away in the San Diego sun.
There will be a party in your honor,
as if nothing had ever changed.

01/07/2016

Author's Note: For my mom, who's dying of pancreatic cancer.

Posted on 01/07/2016
Copyright © 2025 Meghan Helmich