Holding a hand for the last time,
your fingers linger on a wrinkle,
a lifeline you’ll never touch again,
and you tell yourself that maybe memory
is enough, just enough, if it lasts.

Perhaps it will last, but it won’t be enough.
Tomorrow, oh, and years from now
it won’t be this still warm palm,
this hand that took your trembling hand
and held it, all that night, till morning.