Poem: Bird in the cage

BIRD IN THE CAGE

I'm catching premonitions

   in the corner of my eyesight

like fallen stars, graciously cold

my fingertips found a teardrop

   under my skin – cells made of me,

like my brain or bones

I knew it as mine – yet a stranger it has become

grabbing me by the hand, leaving me searching...

                for the last breath

some force sweeping us into eternity

then we tumble down

in the last minute - we chase it

face falls down when we meet it,

the last time you say farewell

making history in these seconds

   nothing standing in the way

of becoming who you are

    our lives shared across time

and as I'll swim in the ocean

I'll remember your name 

*

 A patient once said she found cancer in her breast, and she described it as a teardrop. Listening to Nick Cave in the late hours of a summer night made the words flow onward.