Dark Blue

They’ve dressed you in a dark blue suit,

tie knotted neat, as if you were

on your way to some quiet meeting

instead of lying here

under the humming lights.

I stand at the edge of the casket

like the edge of a cliff,

not knowing if the fall will end me.

Your hand is colder than anything

I’ve ever touched --

a cold that moves through my fingertips

and settles in my bones.

They say your body is “prepared,”

but the stillness is the loudest thing in the room.

There is a shine to your skin,

not of life,

but the strange sheen of borrowed time--

pale fluid in your veins where blood should be,

I listen for a heartbeat but there

is nothing inside.

I search your face for a trace of movement--

the twitch at the corner of your mouth,

a sigh I might have missed--

but there is nothing,

only the suit, the tie,

and the weight of air between us.

Somewhere deep in me,

a voice is screaming,

but it cannot find my throat.

I stand here,

holding your hand,

as if heat could flow back into you

through my palm,

as if the dark blue could open

and you would rise

and call me your little girl again.