Let Me Grasp The Light You Shed Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

I stepped up taking both your hands in mine
They were delicate and cold and ghostly,
Flesh against metal contacting eerily:
I flinched slightly at our standing back time.

On your dress, spells in fretwork ribbons pour
With edges sharp enough to cut or feel -
And palms that berries stained are forged in steel
To break and share a dead man's bread no more.

Woman of words laser-cut line by line
Hailing the taxi of immortality -
Iron killed your brother, ripped away his mask
Do those bright fingers now avoid my clasp?

Although your silhouette may now be read
So much surrounds you that is left unsaid:
Let me grasp the light you shed - tacitly.