Holding On
for Joan
What we see is a freezer
full of ice cream cups,
bed wedges, compression boots,
a woman lifting her hand to the air,
grasping for something
we can’t see
the rhythm of the oxygen machine
pushing air through the cannula,
the rasp of its breath,
the slow pulse of her neck
only visible up close. Intermittently
she wakes, dry-mouthed,
laughs at her hallucination,
weaves a living dream. She’s holding on
and I am, too, hoping we’ll both
be as strong as love, as strong
as her grip on my hand, eyes locked
on each other, on the beauty
of the other, on the cusp of the mystery,
resisting the crossing, the inevitability,
begging the great whoever
to preserve these memories
which I know will be all I hold
before very long.
by Betsy Mars
Editor’s Note: This poem’s imagery is devastating but also true—love is strong.
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