My wife and I walk slowly,

not just because of the ice.

We’re praying for that pace that never gets us there.

And we can feel the winter chill

jabbing at our bones.

But it will seem good-natured

up against the biting cold of death.

 

“He was old,” my wife says.

She may as well declare

that death is the cure for cancer.

 

I can imagine the scene when

we get there, tea and cookies

on a tray in a parlor with floral drapes,

Marge anxious to serve to

the two of us seated on a brown sofa with

cushions for our elbows.

For ten minutes or more, none of us

will even mention Henry.

She’ll pour, we’ll sip, we’ll nibble.

And then my wife will volunteer,

“Is there anything we can do?”

And Marge will burst into tears.

 

I hate that prospect and my legs know it.

Why can’t I slip. Why not a broken bone.

Why not my wife’s tears as she drags me back home

to the safety of everyone in the house alive and well.

But no, we have sympathy to perform,

and to do it properly, we have to be there.

Words so sad, so heavy, they’ll stay around

longer than Henry did.

Maybe if it wasn’t winter.

But what other season could it be.

Clouds are gray overhead but it still won’t snow.

No flake wants to land on Marge’s roof.

It might never leave.