The Killing Blow

I wrote this poem when I was trying to come to terms with my ex-wife's painful relationship with her mother.

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The hiss of oxygen and breath I hear.
I wet your mouth with morphine
turn you and say
“Joy, can you hear me?”

The haze over your blue eyes clears
and that familiar distance appears.

Holding your weak hand
I ease myself into the chair
rest my tired back
adjust my squirming belly.

That look in your blue eyes chills
and that familiar glare appears.
I put aside the years
the time I took the wound
the times I put you to bed
the love I poured onto your ground
to watch it seep away.

“Joy, I love you.”

That roll of your ice blue eyes
and that weak toss of your nose.

You passed within the week
and I thought of the irony of your name
and the chill of that killing stab you left
in the wound you put in my heart.

W D Burns