Terminal

This poem was written for strong women who have suffered or died from cancer.

The rain looms its leaky hollowness
over the box where a raven lay void,
with wings thirsting tenderly,
depleted by silk lace façades
left to cover incomplete sleep
with pleas urging her to break
in pain.

Her ulcerated talons grow skilled
in seclusion, removed
from browned rustling aloneness
stirring unoccupied, relinquishing death
in wrathful memories soaring full blooded,
burdened by appreciation
despite this butchery of care.

Obsessed with neglecting disease,
gutting sounds belatedly crawl into her spine
while brief remissions trap her in a vacuum
craving her smoothness while devouring time.

It is right to grieve for her unclaimed days,
as the usual exhausted hands
mangle chance moments
when she holds unrecognized hope
for a cure to beat this impaired grounding,
consuming her in ink like blankness.

Her life now forfeits
to white volumes
of terminal silence.