He didn't see the patch of ice;
She had closed her eyes for just a bit.
When she looked,
Guardrails tearing...
No time to shout,
Windows blowing out,
Merciful airbags slamming oblivion
Through muffled thudding
sliding,
rolling,
plummeting
plummeting
down.

Silence....

"Some day, if we die at the same time,"
His mother had said,
"We want to be together in the grave."

An ominous request, that,
And one to be perused, ignored,
Revisited now
As her life hovered
"Ten percent," the doctors said.
Shattered body, all alone
.../.../....../..................
Alone.......

They were together again.


"Do you remember what they asked?"

"I do."

"And do you think...?"

The mortuary
Obliging,
Compassionate,
Arranged them
Arms encircling,
Her head upon his chest...
Embraced in life,
Embraced in death.

Lowered gently down,
A warming day,
In spite of snow,
A circling of friends around,
A mercy to have lived and died
Through every harm
Encircled in each others' arms.