While She's Leaving

This night is a stagnant stone dungeon
Caged in bars of oppression.
My sleep was savaged by the sniper of her illness.
Old familiar enemy mocking from another past;
I can hear its laughter in her desperate coughing;
Derisively hacking "Ha! Ha! Ha!"
~ ~ ~
This gasping darkness shakes me to my knees
Squeezing my heart;
Pressing against my bones until they hang dry.
A helpless impotence hollows my spirit
Filling my veins with ice.
Blowing in winds of dread, I feel my empty bones dangling,
Clacking on the frozen 3 a.m. clothesline.
~ ~ ~
My weary eyes watch silently
While death's looming grim shape
Stands at the bench. Its huge relentless hands endlessly
Pounding - pounding - forcing shape to the
Branding iron that sizzles my seared flesh
With a scorched, smoking wound reading FEAR.