Just Yesterday

She lay smiling on the operating table

this, an adventure, like all our others

I held her hand as her smile, suddenly

hidden under the anaesthetic face mask

was found in her eyes

 

with each breath she stepped

further from me

I felt her try to lift her eyelids

each one weighed down by sleepy anvils

I felt her hand empty of her

and let me go

 

waiting in her room I follow cracks in the wall

before I hear the squeaky wheel of her bed and

craning her woozy head backward

“did you hold my hand Dad?”

“yes”

“I knew you would”