Curiouser and Curiouser

C-2 A Long and Sad Tail

Create a sad poem, where the first line is the longest and the last line ends with only one word. (<40 lines)

in the NICU, after he was dead, we all stood around his cot,
freed of silent hope,
we didn't need to watch the monitors
for tiny, imagined blips that might say
-he's there,
he's fighting-
we didn't need to limit visitors to two-
he didn't need the air
we stole with our older lungs-
we didn't need to stay silent to let him sleep-
we could talk together-
we could laugh our despair.
our eyes itched and blinked,
wrung out, wept
dry.

line count: 15