Edward S Gault

 

LAST DAYS

 

In those last days,

Nothing seemed to matter.

You didn’t seem to hear.

Didn’t seem to care.

Good, bad or indifferent,

Whatever I said seemed evil to you.

You must have been waiting for me to say something,

Have been straining to hear me say it

For a long time.

When I never did, you just gave up.

Something in you collapsed.

The hope?

After a while, you stopped listening.

Then you stopped even hearing me.

Even when I began saying the thing you most wanted to hear me say,

The thing I thought you wanted to hear.

Or was it things I didn’t say enough?

Or I said them, but too loudly?

Problem was, I didn’t feel like was being heard.

So, would I speak louder.

Too loud.

Things I remembered,

The things I hoped you might remember too,

You forgot

You would cry, but in those last days,

It didn’t show.

I was told of it years later by our daughter.

You talked to her, not to me.

I was shut out.

Shut out from the two of you.

The ones I loved most.

When I tried to remind you of the affections

Of the times we shared.

The names we called one another

All the shared experiences

You were embarrassed

that was another day.

That was our childhood.

But when we grew up,

We grew apart.

Now we don’t even speak.