Marjorie A. Buettner...

Confessions of a Daughter

. . . and of her last night after she said goodbye to me with a distant smile I wonder why I thought it was so important to leave her alone with death though she gave me permission all the night long and why when I returned in the morning how slow I was to want her to see me knowing by then her vision was turned inward so short those hours that were left with her orange-liquid sleep a companion until I fell into her eyes that were not her eyes after all fell into her ebbing pulse that skittered down her arm and entered mine . . .

snow turning rain . . . my daughter rubs the ash from her forehead

in Contemporary Haibun, v.7, 2006