Nancy Christopherson

Rapture

This may have been the last thing you felt
just before leaving your own home for
good. Turning around gazing at objects

collected with fondness through decades.
That photo of a former who you never did
stop loving but you had to leave anyway, or

your sister or brother or your son or a friend
or beloved pet-companion toward their own
endings. Woven rugs hung from the high

banister, maybe a favorite gold-threaded
tapestry let down from when you were
young, a long time ago. Your parents’

knickknacks which always you meant to
let go of. Now you are doing all of that, this
morning. Saying farewell to the dear flesh

of you so perilously inhabited, with each of its
delicate flaws and even that one toe which
grew funny. You never were fully accepted

anywhere other. Like your favorite booth
in the diner at midnight after the long haul
between Boston and Philly where the train

rattles past at 3 a.m. and you’ve just
contemplated your next move toward
the waitress. She throws the toast at you.

All things must end in one way or another.
And they do, of course, always, guaranteed.
Here you are wrapped in a sheet sighing your

final goodbyes. Everyone weeping. It feels
fine to know that they cared. Look into
the hall mirror one last time at your own

cherished reflection, how the light shimmers
abruptly there. This deep gratitude, what you
waited to seize upon, feed, your whole life.