“Nikki was, not Nikki is, Nikki loved, not Nikki loves”
came with protests, cries and noise
but how much grammar can you expect
from little girls and boys?
Who gets to illuminate
to kids of two and five and four
that death requires past participles
and sister is no more?

Well that was the longest August ever has been,
like too many hours made up each day.
The songbirds quit their singing
and the kids forgot to play.
Sluggish minutes oozed on by
in the heat like sticky tar
while her heart and hands and mind
passed to were from are.

But we’ll still wind that watch just to let it stop
at five o’clock in the afternoon,
because that tender, spiteful hour
will always come too soon.
Time will stop each time it does,
just like it did that day
when she wore her mother’s watch
and time took her away.

When did she move from is to was?
Was it that August day
when all we could do was pray and hope
and cry and hope and pray?
Since when did cold verbs bind a life,
active and passive combined,
and when did she trade present for past
and leave alive behind?

Justin understood it best,
I say in his defense;
he was the one who had it right
when he spoke in the wrong tense—
She didn’t go from is to was,
She went from did to does.
What Nikki was is sick.
What Nikki is is better.
   Remembered.
  
   Eternal.