Last Time He Saw Her. Poem by Terry Collett

The last time Benedict
saw his mother
she was lying
in a hospital bed,
eyes closed, mouth
slightly open, dead.
He'd been told by a nurse
over the phone of her demise,
the voice matter of factly
pronounced the words,
the meaning came in later.

He thought of her, whom
he'd seen the evening before,
the last smile and wave
she'd given, although held
by dementia she seemed
aware he(or someone) was there.

Now she had gone, moved
to a spirit world he assumed
or hoped, although he sensed
her loss, like a ripping apart
and smash grab of his heart.

He had, he recalled, kissed
her forehead the last time
that evening prior, the skin
cool, wrinkled less, seeming
at rest.91 years old was not
a bad innings he supposed,
holding onto that final image
of the previous evening, not
the final one where her body
lay deserted, the emptied shell,
that usual sickly hospital smell.

No, he wanted the last image
to be of her smiling and waving,
not drowning sickly, but saying
a goodbye, seeing half-blindly,
that look in her eye, seeming
to say: we all come, all must die.

He still feels the loss, the empty
place in his heart, the vacant lot,
but the memories cram into the little
boxes in his brain, a holding on,
till, hopefully, happier, they meet again.