HOORAY!!!!! It's all over!! Below is my last poem for the Poem-a-Day challenge.
Even more than writing the poems, the real challenges have been some posting problems on the Poetic Asides website and then checking to make sure all the poems are REALLY posted there. As I expected, the prompt for the last day was to write a farewell poem, so here mine is.
“The Unspeakable”
We both knew it was goodbye
without having to say it.
There was something in your eyes,
your tone of voice, your insisting
on giving me my Christmas present early,
although I said to wait until after
you got out of the hospital.
It was just supposed to be a routine surgery.
“Don’t call the hospital,” you said –
you’d call me as soon as you felt up to it,
in just a few days. Then, when you
came home, I was going to help you out
with groceries, housework, and errands,
whatever else you needed.
I tried to reassure you that everything
would be fine, but I could see that
you didn’t really believe me, and even
as I spoke, I didn’t believe myself.
We didn’t have to say what we both
were afraid was going to happen.
Troubled, I took the gift and left.
I waited, hoping for your call,
but it didn’t come. I thought of
calling the hospital, but didn’t,
because you’d said not to. Instead,
I rationalized that perhaps you had
forgotten to call, been too busy,
didn’t have my number with you.
A week went by, ten days, two weeks.
Then, just a few days before Christmas
I finally heard noises upstairs in
your apartment and decided to call
and see if you were home, ready to
give you a bad time about not having called.
Your son answered the phone.
I asked how you were doing.
Nothing could have prepared me for
the quick response that merely stated,
“You didn’t know? He died a week ago.”
Two heart attacks after surgery,
he explained: the first one survived,
the second one, not. Sorry no one had called.
I hung up the phone and began to sob.
The last time I had cried was when
you had been comforting me
over a badly broken heart.
“He’s not worth it,” you’d said.
Ah, but you were, and writing this,
I want to cry again, for the loss
of my neighbor, my best friend,
the finest man I’d ever known.
We never said goodbye the way
I would have wanted to, though I know
we both knew when we parted
that afternoon that it would be forever.
We just couldn’t speak the unspeakable.
by Carol Berger