It is the day of their deaths;
Twenty four tiny hours.
A passage of light that stole something;
The shade and the glare they both made.
A morning no doubt laced with fear
And an afternoon of lost breathing,
Before the stilled evening
And the unrepentant moon’s sharp display.
My father died at some late point
On the 10th. My mother on the 11th,
Though years apart: a last joining
After withheld words and divorce.
She took his synagogue bag
And the ashes of her cats to her coffin,
He took only silence after his final years’
Dark discourse. I pay my tributes each year
And on the day I will mark them,
Despite the fact that each moment
Remains part of their influence.
One is what one is.
And also, of course, what one isn’t.
In losing love the mouth closes
While feeling within their last kiss.
David Erdos 3/2/18
Illustration Nick Victor