Last Words
at my mother's bedside
Her life frayed to the last strand;
breathing: difficult, tenuous;
and I searching for the right words
in those last minutes
to put our love beyond doubt,
find a gentleness to salve the hardship.
Now, years later, trying to remember
what did I say when love
was reduced to faltering words.
Did I have the right words?
What words can be a parachute
as she steps from that ledge?
