a five day lifetime

for Caleb, who died at five days

While my nephew lived,
five days in April
I should have been taking classes
and writing papers
due the week after he was born,

but I was in the hospital
watching the ventilator
move his lungs
and watching the monitors
trace his heart,

and somehow,
twenty-five pages on Henry James
couldn't hold my attention
like his tiny hand. For
one hundred-seventeen hours
and twenty-three minutes, we crammed

into the NICU, never leaving him alone,
so many tears, so many songs,
lost in white noise. For a lifetime,
(a too short eternity abounding with
greetings, partings, hope, despair)

we told him stories
and we loved him and when he left us,
we ached with an absence
we'd only begun to know.

line count: 25
Author's Note ▶︎

Prompt: The 21st Card in the Tarot Deck is "The World" - which represents an ending to a cycle of life, a pause in life before the next big cycle. It is an indicator of a major change.

Write your STORY or POEM about an ending to a cycle of life, a pause in life before the next big thing, and/or a major life change.