Last Date

I’m so tired of carrying this grief around

like a heavy, full-length, wet wool coat,

like the dark green one I was wearing 

on our first date Christmas caroling

when your hands were cold

and I let you put them in my pockets

to stay warm—

the same hands I held 

when we took our wedding vows,

the ones I nearly squeezed off 

in labor with our two daughters.

Those hands that caressed 

the keys of song and love 

clutched at me in death,

then lay cold, still upon your breast

in the foreign funeral home.

They reach beyond to grasp me still.

I cannot warm them, 

though Lord knows I've tried.

I need to take this infernal coat off now,

weighed down as it is by tears

of regrets and good memories 

that wrap me like fascia to squeeze the life 

out of a muscular future moving forward

without you. I am ok now.

As on our first date, we’ve talked too long,

and it’s growing late. I have to get home.

Take your hands out of my pockets

and gently kiss me goodbye.

You can have this coat to keep you warm.