Here’s where I was those last nights,
twisting on that rack
of a recliner next to your bed,
awake, listening to you breathe
that night so even and smooth
and deep that I slept, too, I think,
and breathed each breath with you,
a thin ray of moonlight draped
across your heart. The dark cradled you
in a stroke of shadow. The next night
I dreamed we rose together,
our selves unmoored, on thinnest air
our breaths lifted and held us gently
above where our bodies slept,
and we touched and breathed in
each other’s exhalations and I woke
as your breath got fainter,
faltered, and I strained so hard to hear it,
to will it to be there and I still don’t know
what I expected – except
that we would keep breathing together
floating above our bodies together
touching, not landing, held in moonlight
and morning
would not come.
Lucia Owen moved to western Maine over fifty years ago to teach high school English. Long retired, she still lives there and writes, gardens and rides. Until his recent death she was the caregiver for her husband of forty-seven years. Her work has appeared in The Cafe Review, Rust & Moth, Spire: the Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability and Writing the Land: Maine as well as in several anthologies. Recently she has had work accepted by The Bellevue Literary Review and Please See Me.
Image Credit – Mahdi Soheili on Unsplash
