Her Last Song
For Barb and she knows why
Jennifer L Low
When fall hangs late and stubborn
in the trees,
the clouds giving themselves over
to a thick, sagging greyness,
a sorrow enters you
melting thick,
running slow and deliberate
through your blood making
you sloe-eyed and sleepy.
You close your eyes
remembering when all you knew
was your mama's nipples
feeding you the sweet milk
from swollen breasts,
the milk gathering caught
in the corners of your mouth
like silent teardrops,
and the stories she told
like songs that would sing
you into sweet slumber,
even though now you cannot sing.
Loneliness clouds your mind
the way a numbing drug
makes you fuzzy and almost incoherent,
till you are desensitized
and that's all you know,
all you want,
then nothing matters anymore.
Words mean nothing now,
they are only empty promises
spoken in vain,
falling heavy on deaf ears
as the weight of sorrow
that pushes you away
making you cry out for the song
that's in your soul,
as the wind blows your words away,
scattering them like dry leaves,
up, up, up,
until they float
like souls.
