Another late night.
The fluorescent bulb buzzes
overhead, as I read and write,
while out my dark window
a city rests in the cold.
The phone rings,
and at this hour,
from this loved one,
worry sets in.
She tells me things have changed.
Her tone is hollow,
strained and unfamiliar.
Her admission is brave;
my reaction is not,
overtaken by the quicksands
of desperate disbelief.
Her voice cracks;
at first, she was taking
just a little, to soothe the pain,
but now rock bottom.
Disease, and its evolution,
the great paradigm shift of life;
we mark it well in our craft,
but sometimes words
are all we have
when pills fail,
and sometimes time,
alone,
purifies what words cannot.
The call now ended,
I slowly shut my books,
knowing that what I need,
what she needs,
lies not in them,
but inside each of us.
The moon outside my dark window
shines, imperfectly.