This is Not

by Joyce Nancy

This is not a poem about how you died
  because I don't know how to write that poem yet.

This is not some well-constructed elegy
  pouring from my throat like endless roses.

This is not the cold fog of a morning phone call
  or how my stomach dropped and throat closed.

This is not your body in a casket
  with glued lips and shriveled fingers.

This is not the Ave Maria or any other beautiful hymn
  at a Catholic funeral promising finality.

This is not the eulogy I wrote for you.
This is not the eulogy I never gave.

This is not an eighty year collection of costume jewelry
  swept into a box for me to sort through. 

This is not your voice, your forever unraveling song,
  or the time you sang Amazing Grace in a hospital bed without words.
  
On the morning you died I stood out in the freezing gray
  and stared at the tree branches dissecting the sky, I wanted
  to make it mean something, I wanted a different day,
  even just the very next day, I wanted you to make it back
  to the warm weather, too much shuffling onto hospital buses, 
  I can't remember a winter this bad in years, I would have told you 
  to hold on, but I couldn't lie, there was nothing coming next
  that had not already come, only the neverending drawing out
  of bad blood, a cleansing that wouldn't keep.

This is not the stent in your arm or the fatigue or the bruising.
This is not the cup of tea you asked for or the stopping of your heart.
This is not the waiting anymore. 
I promise, this is anything 
  but that.