alone with my thoughts

          for Charlie


I am alone with my thoughts in the predawn hours
Waiting for your call to say it’s over.
Three days ago you called to say she went downhill fast
And only a day or two are left in hospice.

She can’t speak, she does not recognize anyone.
Everyone is at her bedside, you and your five children,
Saying your good-byes to one so very dear to you,
And I make sure I have my black tie ready.

I think of your children gathered there, my cousins.
What a blessing to have many close brothers and sisters,
Your brood your legacy, every one adored by you both,
But one is my special favorite.

I remember her giddy girlish antics so many years ago.
It was my first halting boyhood crush.
Our lives lived apart, she alone for many years now,
And I imagine us revisiting a happy time, enjoying living out our years together.

I remember the last hours for my mother so many years ago
And there’s something in that picture I see this morning that escaped me then,
Me in such pain then, numb with overwhelming grief.
I don’t see you. Were you not there?

No one was by my mother’s side. She died alone.
We never said good bye. I saw her last in the hospital
Perhaps a month before she died, my father still pretending
To us and her that she was not about to die.

My step-mother-to-be moved in when the final wait began.
Were you keeping your distance? Or kept at a distance?
How awkward it was for my father to tell me what I already knew
Taking me to talk in the darkness of the back yard, touching me.

He had never touched me gently. “Who is this man?” I thought,
“The one I know glares disapproval and stings with his words.”
But I digress into my own inner void symbolized by her closed casket
As if that would keep our feelings sealed inside.

How could two brothers be so different, you and he?
I admire you all the more for it. When you called me,
We did not speak of my Quagga poem I wrote for you.
I was afraid somehow it had offended you.

The next day I got your letter thanking me for it.
Thanking and thanking, such effusive praise!
Telling me how it touched and pleased you and your true love
In your final days together.

Thank you for your approval.
Thank you for including me in the large universe of your love.
Hear my heartfelt wish that only goodness and light
Shall be with you all the days of your life.