Last Words

For Ed

    by Alarie Tennille

“Bet you never expected me

to be at a loss for words,” he said

in our last conversation.

Each sentence charged forth

with his usual wit and confidence,

then dangled over the abyss

as cancer, the relentless editor

of endings, slashed away

at the speech center of his brain.

No need for words.  The miles

between us but cracks in a long

sidewalk paved by childhood.

He didn’t want me to know

he was dying.  Thought I had too

much trouble of my own.

His mother, father, sister murdered,

he knew that tragedy

only burdens the living.

He knew the impossibility

of saying good-bye.

© 2011 Alarie Tennille

Alarie Tennille is a Pushcart Prize nominee and serves on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place in Kansas City, Missouri.  Her chapbook, Spiraling into Control, was published in 2010 by The Lives You Touch Publications.  Alarie’s poems have appeared in numerous journals including Margie, Poetry East, ByLine Magazine, The Little Balkans Review, Coal City Review, and The Mid-America Poetry Review.