On the Train to Hospice Care

If every earthly body earns its trip into the dark,

then I would like to be there with you

when you turn your face away from the light

and say what you will say to the darkness--

perhaps prepared, perhaps words you never thought 

you would say--and I would like to be the one

leaning down and whispering into your ear,

into the last scrap of you that can hear me,

words you never heard in this life, from yourself or 

from the wind or from another, I would like to say

you are doing fine, you are doing this perfectly.

--Joseph Fasano