Geri

Sixty-two hours before you leave this place
I listen to your spirit struggle
for release. Your breath comes low and fast,
panting. Deep and harsh. You
sound like a mother in labour.

And I see a full moon sailing high above
a Canadian forest, where the she-wolf
lies labouring, bringing you home
into your lupine skin.

The skin you wear now in these last
hours is so fragile. Dry and cracked.
Stretched by steroids and chemo
that ultimately could not hold you here.
Shed off your skin and move on.

I hold you. My life flowing through
the heartbeat in my hands
sharing your death as closely as I can
in love with you, my dyke-mother.

I whisper: Go…there is nothing to fear…
nothing to hold you here…see…the end
of the tunnel where you stand on the ledge?
When you jump you can fly…and when you land
you are born. She who’s heartbeat you hear now
will be there, licking the mucous from your coat.

You hear everything I say,
even though the tumours in your brain
ate through your hearing three weeks ago.

Thirty hours before you leave this place
I find you wide awake. The first time you
have woken in many days. You grip tightly
to both my hands with your own,
fixed eye contact between us –
although your sight left you last week.


Letting go of your hands, the hardest
thing I’ve done to date, I say goodbye
kissing you. Fear rising like a snarl.
I leave you freedom to leap.

(c) Liz Willows 2000