I can't get the image out of my head

Of when I held you right there

And watched you die

Upstairs in the back bedroom of our house

Where we have lived for many years

Your last gasping breaths

I see it again and again

As the breeze blew in

The room I still don't go in at night

Because I see you

Your transformed, dying face will recede with time

Is what our counselor said

Who we walked to every Monday holding hands

Slower every week with your breathing

Until we had to drive

But then only two months after you died

Our counselor died

All at once, her empty office with no light on

As if her work was done

We are all always so close to not existing at all

Except in the confusion of our survived-bys grasping at the echoes

Today our daughter asked me if mama swims

I told her, "Yes, she does

And that's probably all she does

Now."

What was you is now borne across waves

Evaporating