Yarrow House

Dying, as Process

 For my grandmother, at 103
She lingers on the end of her life,
wades through the sodden flesh
toward dissolution, slowly and unwilling

to release the last sparks flying like stars, 
fading like fireworks against a July sky.
Live long enough and you lose

everything, even children, even eyesight,
the touch in the fingertips, the sound of birds
defending their food, and after that nothing

but still the tenacious grip on 
living, one more breath, one more beat
of the heart, one more thought, before
that brief crossing into invisibility.
				

Published in Borderlands, Court Street Press, Seattle: 1999

Onetime reproduction for non-resale purposes permitted by the author with the following credit line:  by Judith Yarrow