Awhile

She said she would be gone a little while. Hours later white-coated figures wheeled her gurney in. She did not come out. Though I imagine her coming out being pushed in a wheelchair flowers in her lap smiling weakly, as I held a car door upon. She travelled further than a little while, the grocery store raced down a long road, she chased it for miles and miles then what with the headlong hours tumbling over berms and ditches like flung away road kills I had to at last consider the term ‘a while,’ and what it meant to her. Did she ever feel that the ER staff had been on high alert since she was born, or perceive the gravity of ‘a while’ as she sat laughing each morning with her friends in the coffee shop, or when her last lover quit being her lasting love? She’s gone now of course, but for me that ‘awhile’ seems to grow less every year I keep on living, holding her face inside my eyes like a child yet to be delivered.