Summer Wine

Every Poem Ends.

'Hospital coffee is

surprisingly good'

mum said for the

fourth time.

She sipped her

black Americano

with tears in her eyes.

You said the tea wasn't

as good as mine -

two sweeteners and

a drop of milk, right?

You always had it in

the same brown mug

on the same worn sofa.

Now that brown mug

had been replaced

with a plastic cup - 

complete with a straw.

Your gold necklaces were

replaced by IV lines - 

translucent and beautiful.

But they weren't you.

you were leopard prints

and bright nail polish.

You were Chanel Chance

on a Sunday morning -

a glass of rosé on

a Friday evening.

You were laughter

through an open window

we heard six doors down.

I could never tell you

you didn't wear Death well.

Death is an unfinished

tube of mascara.

It is uncurled hair

and morphine-glazed eyes -

it is pointless Get Well Soon cards.

It's a prayer in

the hospital chapel

when you don't believe -

it is getting no answer.

Death calls you

at 3 am, masked

as a panicked nurse.

He is the extra weight

on the car accelerator,

and the smell of

linoleum on our clothes.

He takes you while

I sanitise my hands

in the corridor.

I didn't see you leave.

I didn't wave you off

like those Monday mornings

at Piccadilly Station.

I didn't feel you leave.

I held my breath

as you freed your last.

A drawn curtain.

closed eyes and

a teddy under your arm.

'Is she sleeping?'

- No darling, she's gone.

- I don't understand.

- do you want to hold her hand?

- but it's so cold.

That mourning, on

August 25th, the air

grew as cold as your hand.

Leaves withered and

died with you -

trees revealed their skeletons,

warped by pain, by sorrow.

The sun looked paler,

the wind howled your name,

flowers wilted and blackened

when they felt your loss.

You were no Cilla Black.

remembered not by thousands,

but by a few - and yet the seasons

didn't change for her, they changed for you.