Without Arms to Walk Into (Part Two)
Contributed by
Calista
on
Tuesday, 17th August 2004 @ 01:30:48 PM in AEST
Topic:
Grief
|
Without Arms to Walk Into
Part Two
August 16, 2004
On the news, the man had said,
A plane went down, and many were dead.
The engine caught fire, and spread underneath,
Slowly burning the tail,
Like a hot summer leaf.
The plane hit the ocean, just off of Maine,
The number of fatalities,
Has not yet been proclaimed.
Which one? What flight?
Was it my wife?
The words on the screen rolling along,
As the broadcaster changed, and moved on.
"Flight number 263, departing from Boston"
The letters spelled out, and I was lost in,
Panic and grief, fear and disbelief.
It’s wrong, I’ll check,
There’s been a mistake.
It was a short flight, it was daylight,
How could this happen,
Not to my wife.
I crumpled to the floor, the carpet fisted in my hands,
I let the sobs, roll out in demands.
Gone, gone. My love, my only.
I should have gone with her,
If only she had told me.
I’m crying, she’s dying,
There’s nothing I can do.
The video is playing,
The screen is filled with death.
Pieces of the debris and airplane floats,
I can see the emergency health center boats.
And the tiny dots bobbing in the blue,
Each one a person, I cannot tell who.
My fingers are running over the screen,
"Where are you? Where?" I scream.
The phone is ringing, I can hear it far off,
Which dot is my wife, is she there, in the cold?
Why can’t I take the water, and pull it from the screen,
To fill my house, so I could swim, search for her,
And take her from the scene?
She lies there in the icy waves,
And does she think of me?
"What can I do to get to you?
Oh, hang on, I’ll be there."
I whisper to the television,
Through tears that take away my air.
In the hospital, the survivors are there,
It took me eight hours, but I finally arrived.
At the front desk, through squeals of sirens and pain,
"Where, is she here, my wife, has she survived?"
I’m talking in tangles, the words don’t make sense.
The nurse has gotten, her name from my lips.
Scanning the list clipped on the desk,
Name after name, death after death.
She’s taking too long, I have to see her,
Why can’t they bring her, bring her to me?
"Sir, I’m afraid, she isn’t in the hospital…"
The rest escaped my ears.
This nurse had just confirmed,
All of my sickening fears.
Not in the hospital, not at home,
Here I am, flooded and alone.
"Thank you" I manage,
And turn, walking slowly away.
Through the halls of weeping families,
Of joyous ones too,
Wondering how they got so lucky,
And I’m left without arms to walk into.
How can my heart be so heavy and dark,
And yet the sun spills through.
To find myself, to find my car,
I don’t remember where I’d parked.
What is the point, in going back,
To see here everywhere.
My wife is gone, so what am I,
If not a puddle of despair.
Sitting on the sidewalk,
My head held in my hands.
I can’t face telling anyone,
Can’t face feeling it myself.
If she were here, I know she’d say,
"Hey. What’s all this about?"
My eyes were playing tricks on me, or was it really she?
"You…they said…"
She smiled, her smile, and took away my doubt.
"That I wasn’t in the hospital?
I just checked out."
Copyright ©
Calista
... [
2004-08-17 13:30:48]
(Date/Time posted on
site)
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