(This is for my friends and hospice teammates, as we grieve for our patients.)
Each day is a kiss
with no response,
but I know, it's a kiss.
Like the kisses you’ve sown
into the walls, the windowsills
for forty one years,
the way our children crackled laughter
when they were children.
Each day I give myself a task.
I count how many kisses given
And how many received.
I say, “Sweetheart, how many kisses will you give me today?”
And in your silence, I write down
a thousand.
A thousand kisses to give me time.
to catch your last breath into my body
I will keep you
as I too, wait
to become air*.
(*When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi)
