Tulip

I watched

The last

Summer fly

Slow and dizzy

Lay herself on

White windowsill

Myriad diamond eyes

Following prism’s light

Rainbows cast upon

Soft, pink walls

Friends dropping like

Tulip petals

Passing prime

Quickening decay

Disease/death plays

Duck duck goose

Tapping those

I adore on their

Heads, hearts

Kidneys

Disoriented, dying

Tallied and marked

Medical charts

Obituaries

Holding space for

Best friends with

Incurable pains

Washing cups for

The one I call

Champion, as she

Folds into smallness

Crushed by doctor’s call

Cancerous kidney

On top of MS

While her son

Waits on a list

For his own kidney

Fanciful notions of

Immortality and infinity

Grounded by reality

Hope’s wings fell off

Long ago

I rage in bitterness

As living bodies

Bursting with myriads

Of gifts and stories

Fall apart

Under white clouds

And blue skies