for Merry
Though she could barely carry
a conversation, she could still sing,
so I would sit by her nursing home bed
and sing Moon River and her eyes
might not even open, but
her lips would start to move,
wider than a mile, I’m crossing
you in style someday.
Her voice was wobbly, perhaps,
but her notes were true,
and she’d smile as she sang.
Old dream maker, you
heart breaker, wherever you’re goin’,
I’m goin’ your way.
She’d been nowhere but
this bed for years,
but I could see behind her eyes
she was aiming toward some
imperceptible future,
a drifter, off to see the world
beyond this one.
And I would hold her hand
and she would squeeze it.
If she could hear the tears
in my voice, she didn’t say so.
We’d sung together since I was a girl,
show tunes in her kitchen
and hymns from the choir loft in the church.
Her soprano, a beacon of my childhood.
Now, in a room far from her,
I light a candle as she drifts away,
and sing as if she could hear me,
there’s such a lot of world to see,
my voice cloudy, as if any moment
it might start to rain and that
rainbow’s end might appear,
and for a moment, we could
look at it together before
she goes around the bend, alone.
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