Next Spring I will move.  The Wisconsin
winds will sweep me from this house
of yours where I no longer belong.

You climbed the lattice of the cold
Winter.  I was your bounty.  Now
I can leave the brown sugar color
of this apartment. There are scrapes
on white walls from your wheelchair.

The family will not care and for that,
I will not ask.  

I am through writing thank you notes
and receiving the few callers who
patted me for your loss.

Spring is too far away for intimate
details.  The shaking tree limbs
will be quiet and the annual
equinox will welcome new growth
and knitted sorrows.

We were an uninvolved lot,
the children and you and I.  

So I will write again
on my calendar.  No one will ever
remember that it was I who took
your hand,

your heart,

your suffering

to the last
quiet sigh.



Caroline Shank