So very many things
In this fractured world connive
To come between us, love.

It’s hard to keep the white noise
Of busyness and distraction
From thickening around us.

But tonight I watched your trousers
Tumbling with my t-shirts.

Now embracing,
Now parting,
Now meeting again.

And can there be less hope
For us than for our laundry?
What was soiled becomes clean.

The pretense of separation vanishes.
Return again, to me.

-~-~-~-~

For Three Word Wednesday and Totally Optional Prompts

You’re receding now,
the dementia claiming ever
larger portions of your self.

The end is drawing near,
more swiftly even than suggested
by your April diagnosis.

And all there is for me to do
is read each update as it posts,
mired in inarticulate silence,

Dreadfully embarrassed to confess
that in all honesty I never
knew you very well.

And what’s more,
I really couldn’t ever tell
if you liked me much.

And so I cannot find the way
to properly express
my sorrow and my anger

At the world for taking you
so abruptly after years
of living with your illness

In relative good health
and resolute good humor,
proving that it really could be done.

I know that there are countless others
with far greater claim to you
and for whom your looming loss

Cuts so much deeper,
but please believe me when I say
that even though we were not close

I always was aware that I was
blessed for having met you.
And I will dearly miss you,

My friend.

-~-~-~-~

-~-~-~-~

Today marks one year since my grandmother passed away.