Poem #3: With the Metal Bone of Her Hand

It was spring when she hung

the picture on the wall

in the hallway we used to share.

She looked like light

in white and gold

her clothes hung

on a frame too thin for her bones.

She tapped the head of the nail

a soft tripping patter

with the metal bone of her hand.

I watch her with swimming eyes

my heart swings

as she steadies the picture.

She doesn’t realise I am here

doesn’t feel my presence

in the sparse hall.

I wonder if I should stumble

knock or call out

alert her that I have not left her

alone in this world.

But I feel her sightless eyes

would not recognise me

the way her hands would

the way her heart should.

So I stay quiet

leaning against the wall

watching and watching.

She steps back to admire her work

grim and calculating

staring and stopping

reaching out every few moments

to brush away dirt

to shift the frame.

I stare too

despondency breaking over my head.

She stares, I stare, and finally

with a machine-like jerk

she hobbles away, satisfied.

Slowly, I move forward

softly, guiltily

I hope to see the beautiful blues

rosy pinks

flowery violets and

pungent reds.

Maybe a floating river or

a scenic park.

I step in front

expectant, yearning for

some measure of hope

that life will move on as it has done

that normalcy will return and

vibrancy will reign in the hall.

Instead I recoil

shot through

and I can only hope as I fall

that the blood will stain the walls

and add some colour to this barren land.

Still she doesn’t notice as I double

she picks another frame

and I collapse on the floor.

I feel my body dying as I stare

and keep staring at her picture on the wall.

The whiteness, the emptiness,

spreads out its veins

pumping liquid void into the walls

traveling through the floor

bubbling over her feet

injecting into her skin.

She shuffles back

her knuckles white on her new picture

blissfully unaware in her drugged state.

Without hesitation, without any hint of fear or confusion,

she steps as a cat

over my writhing body

and hangs a blank picture

with the metal bone of her hand.