At Last
“The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” ~ Edgar Allan Poe
Although her hair has not been tinted or
Recolored, it has lavender inside
It, peeking out toward death’s wide open door.
No falseness makes a show. The ring this bride
Wore more than fifty years ago is on
Her hand, the only golden moment here
Upon the hospice bed. The latest dawn
To come is brought by morphine, more a sphere
Of sleep than waking, so the dawn is like
An easy twilight, not a starting time.
Her cheekbones rise in gauntness as they spike
Well-nigh through yellow skin, far from sublime.
One jaundiced shoulder, bare, cannot find sleep
So easily, but it will come, long, deep.
~ Phillip Whidden