Funny face —
I liked to laugh as the mischief passed
behind your gray-brown eyes.
Now I just cry
and wonder why now
you have to go?
How could we know
that the cancer would still grow
in one last malignant magic show.
The pain of its refrain
we thought we wouldn’t feel again.
Yet it metastasized,
spread fast this time,
a blur of incurable bad signs.
Six years ago
when we walked this line,
we weren’t ready to release
you to the other side.
Instead we begged God
for stoppage time.
And the answer came
as you survived
tumor-free
to our surprise.
But like Hezekiah,
we should’ve known
that this gift of years
was but a loan.
Some miracles don’t last forever.