I saw you in my dreams last night
As your body laid there cold and quaking
The doctor robed in decrepit shadows
Whispered to me, “wishes do come true.”

Your hands were pale and fragile
Like a thousand crumpled paper cranes
A thousand torn up love letters
A thousand rewritten apologies

So I gently folded them into mine
Hoping to give them back their true form
Reshaping your joints to familiar angles
The ones my own hands knew best

I studied the rise and fall of your chest
Encumbered with each painful breath
Your body and soul danced with demise
To the sound of the monitor keeping time

Then a disembodied voice rattled my sanity
A forgotten melody that once haunted me
“I cheated death for far too long
to let you be the one that stops my heart’s beating”

I could not reply, lacking the proper answer
Overcome with remorse and eager to end the torment
I hurriedly traded heartbeats with you
And felt my pulse shudder and stammer

My new heart’s cadence slowed then ceased
Suddenly missing the rib caged rhythm
An epiphany of the words I desperately needed
Became perfect, cohesive, articulate, whole

But the room fell silent and my voice fell short
Only the sigh of my last breath lingered
And my unsung requiem remains
*L’esprit de l’escalier