But a Moment

I hold you ... tight to my chest but with a concerned tenderness, as if you are an infant that I am shielding from a storm ... or an angel of Valhalla - her last breath given, ear-to-heart for the soft-thrumming rhythm of life ... (what my tympans now ache for) your flesh is warm next to mine as I rock us forth-and-back in the bright midday sun making the foxglove and Queen Ann's lace wave to the hazy meadow about us - honeys and bumbles prance like pollen pixies, unconcerned with tragedy ... (blue steel peeks from the weeds beside you - the diabolical serpent) our favorite spot, this - where we always came to make up - oh, how sweet those reconciliations among the rippling pasture grasses on countless days such as this but NOT this ... there is not a puff of breeze - and faint, shadowy, gray-blue wisps with a tinge of sulfur swirl around us like phantom arms, threatening - a demon of death that you have released (from its brass casing) I swat it away with anger - INTENSE anger ... sweat pouring off my brow to sting my face (I ran as fast as I could, you see ... as fast and as hard as I could, after your note) washing tears away that drip on your cheek from my chin - that precious porcelain cheek that I have kissed so often - sometimes with intent other times for its sake alone ... and such eyes above - those once dazzling, burnt umber eyes - staring right through me as if an apparition ... or some shimmering gem just beyond holds your gaze ... as if you are in another world - another existence where I can not follow (which, of course, you ARE) I try to shut your eyes like they do in movies but they will not close ... not at all still quite warm and supple, but they won't shut and I think, maybe ... (irrationally) that you WANT them open - that perhaps you wish to witness my grief perhaps - from that other realm - you're still watching counting my tears as they fall each one a briny christening of your horrid act - your awful, deadly, horrid act that I was but a moment too late ... to prevent.