Sadness

Grandmother's Sadness

When his cancer
wins, and we mourn him

what will Grandmother do?
I have love fresh and new
with a marriage months from now.

If I fell

If my love fell

How incomprehensible

to love for a lifetime
with suffering for a final reward.

What could we tell
Grandmother in her sadness?

When we bury him
will she poke and joke
in that accent of oklahoma

or will she be silent
like that beautiful cliche
of an old lover's death?

MGB

Father's Sadness

 He could barely tell us
and I couldn't reply.

To see a father
facing his father's death
and feel the sad recognition
of an end.

Grandfather's hands shake
and he smells like comfort.

a voice of gruff sweetness.

This shaky sign of disease,
how odd that it should comfort.

A hug to memorialize a man.

How odd
that when it ends
I will miss his tremors.

I wonder
if father
will miss them too.

MGB