Do you say it when your love is buried,
unable to hear, cremated, or earlier, too weak,
maybe too delirious to hear?
Perhaps you say it when you know death is real: it is
inevitable,
and goodbye must be said—if only to unhearing ears,
as sight and hearing and understanding are gone.
Will your love understand your touch,
the pain throbbing through your fingers and the unseen
tears?
Will your love comfort you when your love knows only pain?
How do you say goodbye?
How can you?
Life suddenly is nothing, meaning only life is gone
or will be, when your own hearing and seeing and your breath
are gone.
How do you say goodbye
to your love who is to die?
How do you say it when goodbye offers you no comfort,
just the realization:
your life, your love, is dead.
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