Old Future Gone

  

Old Future Gone

The nurse gave me your teeth

tonight, a strange, sad thing,

that small blue jar, so cool

in my hand.

I thought of the day,

that green and spring-warm

day in May when I left.

I knew that you

would die alone

and I wept for it,

for your dim

and distant future passing.

Here it is, that old future, gone,

in this dim and gleaming

room with tiles so cold,

no chair pulled close, no hand to hold,

just me, and come too late

with tears that fall on

your still warm face,

cooling now in your

 wintry eternal way.

I left you again,

 in your shadowed room,

 with your still, chill face.

Just me, come too late

with warm tears falling,

and gone now too.

Tonight, I threw your teeth away,

a strange, sad thing.

Tara Flaherty Guy







Tara Flaherty Guy is a recovering career zoning enforcement officer, with a BA in Creative Writing from Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN.  She is a contributing writer at St. Paul Publishing Company.  Her latest work is forthcoming in the St. Paul Almanac, Talking Stick (Jackpine Writers' Bloc) Literary Journal, and Yellow Arrow Journal.  Guy lives in Minnesota with her husband and three cheeky, entitled cats