The Last Room

Here I am, Love, left behind
In this old house you loved and had so briefly.
You are close enough to touch today,
Alone in this old house with paint and plaster;
This is the last room, cleared away.
Square feet with me is still disaster,
And not a chance I've figured right.
If you were here, math would not matter;
You would look up, your eyes alight,
And grin at me, perched on this ladder.
You would be seventy and nine.
I can't imagine your quick body
Even so frail as it became
Before the end when death was kind:
A sleep within a sleep and no awaking.
Or did you, as I long to think, arise,
Delighted and surprised, as light was breaking
And come to kiss me, sleeping, one last time?
That would be sweetness undiminished;
But I have walls to caulk and prime
and this last room in your last dream
To finish.

(c)Bea DuRette                    2009

published in The Poet's Domain, Vol 25

Live Wire Press, Charlottesville, VA