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I Never Told Her She Was Dying 

by
T. Emmett Mueller

Her faith was a hot-air balloon 
soaring with prayers scrolled large
on all sides so an aging god could see
from his heaven.

She requested her priest and when he came,
she pulled back from the black of his robes
and oily thumb, protesting, " I've had two bad days, Father, " 
All sounds stopped in breathless hush of thought.

I, right-hand maiden, daughter,
wanting childhood miracles,
gathered powers and pressed my strength
into her limp hand --
flaccid tether to a deflating balloon.

At the moment when the labored breathing stopped,
I looked at her bedside clock (exactly three, the hour 
of her savior.) but it moved on 
and the rosary in her other hand 
did not become a serpent,
no tunnel, no light, no countenance of peace,
just silence and a single faceless man 
came in a dark van to wheel her off into the night --
the only sound, a pen scratching names on a receipt.

No cock crowed, but in the morning
a breeze moved sprightly limbs on young trees,
ants walked in procession on her porch,
resurrection opened the day,
and dust motes settled on a pair
of empty shoes.

I untied the Get-Well mylar balloon
from her bed, let go the ribbon,
and watched the sky accept 
a silver gift of my belief.

 

 

T. Emmett Mueller is a retired educator who has devoted the last several years to the study and writing of contemporary poetry. Some of the magazines in which his work has appeared are: Maelstrom, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Stark Raving Sanity, Mind Fire, Introspection, Outsider, Emotions, Internet Poetry Magazine, Writer's Quill, A Writer's Choice, This Hard Wind, and The Argotist. 

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