Your last breaths seemed painful to me
I am certain of your last thoughts
As mine may be the same as I say good-bye to the world of pain I created
Speaking to you like Neruda speaks
To his mother would not be possible
I am tired beyond those black years
When I constantly cared for you
I did tell you I loved you as I put
My flabby arm around you that you
Could not put around me like your sister
Who showed me affection I missed
Your mother's words came to me
In missed caresses as you explained
Her cold Norwegian upbringing
And the distance between you and her
What did you get from her in those
Years of vocalizing in Dakota's enclaves
As I remember her in her last year's
I felt little warmth in my failed heart
These vacancies have passed down
To my children and to me doubly
In these years of distance and emptiness
That have been left to me unpolished
Barry G. Wick