Our Last Conversation
   (For Amy)
 
I arrive at your doorstep
days before Death reaches 
it and digs its claws into your wooden plank floor. 

There are no plans made after the coffee talk
of what costumes the kids picked 
or what next year’s garden will bring.

And now I am your eyes and read exceptionally creative 
from Lily’s school papers.
I am your hands       
pulling the bills he’ll have to pay first,
topping them with the cherry of a life insurance policy
while you lay in a hospital bed in your living room. 

Your definition is not dressed in any language 
or sung in a last ballad.
It’s found in the silence of empty space
the certainty of what the wind carries away
hidden in the long breath before jumping.

                             Kara J. Valore


Originally published in GrassLimb