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The last month of your life
happened so long ago;

I am older now than you were
in those final days before you
escaped the drudgery
of survival.

I rarely think of you now,
I had forgotten the turmoil of those
terrible days, but sleep has deserted me.
I'm alone with unquiet waking thoughts,
while my neighbours, insensible,
drift on the soothing currents of sleep.

Now you come to visit. You remind
me of how little I knew. I do remember
those night callers, bringing their
inscrutable requests, how you
put on your coat and hat and followed them

to bedrooms where life had departed.
You washed lifeless forms carefully,
as though you restored the innocence
that toil had taken from them.

Through my childhood years
I remember your services to the dead.

The night when you joined them was
my first encounter with the implacable end.
Anger and fear were the only garments
that fitted me. Your corpse was a stranger
I had hoped never to see.