Final Comfort

I saw this image on the night of the Colorado theater shooting before I went to sleep. I haven't forgotten it since.

Laying still on a white sheet

The coal gnome and pallid ghost shake him.

Make his face red like a beet

 Whisper all the secrets that make him.

 

Tell him the sheet’s thin when it tears like that

Tell him it’s working if he’s scared

All red; his blood makes his blanket a vat.

But that’s life; our pain is all shared.

 

He reaches for the ghost’s hand

The white resembles comfort to him.

Once grasped, it all becomes sand

It’s true: life’s thread is that thin.

 

Tell him the sheet’s thin when it tears like that

Tell him it’s working if he’s scared

All red; his blood makes his blanket a vat.

But that’s life; our pain is all shared.

Reviews

[sithlordjp]

A "coal gnome"... what a powerful image... I really like how this one is put together, old feelings reaching beyond the borders of life and death... "ghost’s hand", wow, had to read that again, and again. Well done! :)