For Love of Ann Marie

the loss of a friend's daughter

 

Within that hour

we faced the end of her life

ablaze with rage

and in the center there were faces

of all that she loved.

Some were gray and still.

Some were there waiting

      for her to reach across that cold river

             that called her name in a nightmare of screams.

 

To see the beauty of her unspoiled youth

with painful clarity,

how small her part had been to play

in this life

and beyond that to imagine

her music never composed,

pictures never painted,

            poems never written,

            her children never born.

Knowing light and life

should have been hers to embrace.

 

Faces around her turned away, embarrassed that

the judgment was for someone so young that day.

“Take me,” we prayed to deaf ears.

Doctors stood waiting in indifference,

immune to the fears in her blue eyes that leaked panic down pallid cheeks

touched by her honey blonde curls.

 

Which way could we turn

Within that hour

When she faced

     a stainless steel table,

           with a brutal God’s sadistic verdict

hanging in every beat of blood in her veins.

He could have saved her barely noticed life,

         But He apathetically yawned,

              too bored to play longer with this set of puppet’s strings.

Reviews

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God Almighty, I'm going to drown myself in the bath!!! This is so emotional Mimi, and the third piece about death I have read in succession. This is non-fiction? I'm assuming it is. As always you manage to evoke feelings with all you write. Your use of words is nothing short of brilliant as are your observation skills, every detail is taken into consideration. I really loved this piece...and haven't we all been in this position at some time in our lives. We always blame God, but I had to believe that he was there for the dying and not apathetic when I worked in Hospice, it is difficult and unbelievably gruelling watching a loved one slip away with the life draining out of them...I owe you a nightmare!
Love,
Helen xx