From the Gut

I had my father's face his mouth and eyes his thin skinned heart. Though those features have melted and are smeared by old age. I sometimes wonder if he ever had my genetically maimed gut. He never knew me nor I him, but I carry my mother's pain her long gut-aching loss, but her loss and mine were never the same. You can't mend a loss you cannot name and she could not shed her gut-wrenching death wish until it came for her.