Still now
and every day after
I’d fight for Her.
And every day
in between that slips
by with sleep then

waking to the silence that screams
from Her empty crib. Where
full breasts weep
in warm showers draining
the last sign of Her from my body.

Now people can pretend
She was never there        here—

That there is no room filled
with the existence of Her
where the cat now sleeps.

The Far Shore by Carol Ann McNeil