Saying Goodbye Again

Posted for Robin Smith (@artistrobin)
as an entry for @dversepoets Poetics night

I sit on the front porch in the chair she liked,
the winter sun warm on my face and her wind chime
talks to me until her call.
Cows she came to know graze
The fence line eavesdropping.  
The daughters say she won't recover enough to go to hospice.
They hold the phone for her because she insists.
Her voice is full of pain. I ask if she's getting enough medication,
She says: No but I want to stay awake.
We touch on her grandchildren I know she's worried that
her death is the only thing they'll remember, I tell her it won't be.
Then she says: I love you dolly, I'm going
to go eat lemon pie and chocolate now.
Both of her favorites when she lived with me.
I answer: That sounds really nice. And it does.
She says: I don't care if I get sick and die today.
I say: If you do, know I love you.
She doesn't answer right away and I hear the hitch
in her voice that means she's crying too.
We've said goodbye a hundred times in twenty years of cancer.
Maybe I'll talk to you later, she says softly.
I say: Okay if not today then sometime.
She says: Yes and bring chocolate.

(c) copyright 2012 Robin Smith. All rights reserved.