We lived for a time in the house of the dead,
spoke the language of the dying. We held her hand.
All through the endless Friday on the tenth
of October.

We clutched and begged her to wake up,
we grew quiet, gave her the weavings of our memory,
told her it's ok to go.

What far off room she lay in! Or came to the window
to watch us. Listening to our last conversations
with her body, tethered down in case her heart
should leap. What were her thoughts I often wondered.

I see cold does not come until death does, her loose hand
in mine was entirely warm, that energy held tighter
when I wanted to let go. I returned again and again
to pluck it up, as if I owned it.

Do you know about the spinal fluid, where enzymes
float on the wake of something fierce? Snowflakes,
evidence of many deaths within the brain, as if the brain
were more than one. 

The heaviest news was delivered by the doctors
in a small room of chairs. It was almost cozy,
until you looked at our faces. What would Carol want,
was the question. We held mirrors to our hearts,

fiddled with our hands in our laps or kept them still 
under crossed arms holding the hurt in. When her son Colin
spoke, I thought for a moment Carol was right there beside him.

My mom always told me she never wanted to end up like that!

We hushed the room so everyone could hear. And after that
there wasn't very much to say. We filled in the gaps of our wondering
with small questions, shook hands with the doctors who looked
so sad.

I am looking around in these memories for light to drop
into this poem. A brief discovery, a glimmer, some hope.
Every poem has a heart, if you forget to add that to all the skin
and breathing almost everyone looks away.

So, let me put my own heart here on the page. It's too heavy
to hold at this moment anyway. Take the white of this paper,
hold it to your cheek where the tear still dries. Whisper with me
some simple song in the language of the dying.