OK. So it was expected

that any breath could be her last.

I’ve sat with her so many times

as I raked over gripes from my past.

But what I’m still sitting with now

is the contrast between life and death:

one minute her chest’s up and down;

the next she’s drawn her last breath.

There was calmness in that in-between moment,

with sounds of her last snores and sighs,

as I sat in my ambivalent seat

making heartfelt, what-if goodbyes.