One for Sorrow

I’ve been seeing them for months in fours

Fanned feathers

Celestial blues, flanked with obsidian rainbows—

Four for a boy.

Three days ago,

Three didn’t show.

One flew solo—

One for sorrow.

Yesterday and today, the same—

One for sorrow.

Another silent death inside the chalice of life.

Mother of death—another passes beatless.

At least he will, soon.

It could be hours, days, weeks away.

One for sorrow.

He has no clock,

Only mine ticks on.

Until then, I wait.

Holding the silence within—

The growing void

Of his deathbed.

His roof collapsing from

The haematoma down.

I select a tree, a burial site,

A square I knitted nine years ago,

His teddy.

I consider the name that will be whispered when he slips from my body into my palms,

And my eyes drink his flesh in for the first and final time.

One for Sorrow.

I’m birthing death—

Not for the first time.