Is This The End?

By Lady Sheridanne Kelley

This will be the day to forget.
The one with ragged edges,
A piece of paper torn loose.

Perhaps in the corner
A bit of scribbling.
Or a smudge in the sky,

Like a cloud.
Impressions from the pen
Of the day that just ended.

It’s a grey day.
It has grey trees with grey leaves,
And thick dust still falling everywhere.

The bedroom is white
And everything is covered
In light dustings of frost.

The white hands
Of the seven-day clock
Are burrowing back into the two

Deep holes for the key.
No chimes.
You remember your husband’s face.

It winds down like a clock.
Someone’s eyes are fixes
On the white hands of the clock.

Two more minutes to the needle of snow.
Your husband lies there, bed rails up.
You lie on your bed near him.

Your hands
Pull his two eyelids down.
You close your eyes in pain.

Tomorrow, life will again blare like a radio
When the time is right.
The sun always remembers

And you re open your eyes
To the emptiness
That now remains.