Days of 1993

Time stopped February twentieth.
Tests taken, processed—
seven warning signs
predicted their results.

Let it rip through disease
like a knife in tender flesh:
morphine, radiation,
burn it out, take it down.

“Three months, maximum”—
one day, one week, one month,
two. April showers pounded down
intravenous rain clouds.

Calendars flipped to August;
Their glossy pages felt like
his thinning skin after all
the needles finished their job.

December tenth hit
like a frozen winter wall.
A last breath sighed out
of his tissue paper lips

Burning frost hung so low
engraved in icy memory:
trade Christmas for a funeral,
December ’93.