DYING DROIGHNEACH OF MY UNDERLYING BITTERNESS

This illusion of self holds a trick of reality
by the hand and weeps for frail missed conceptions.
The all-huge most powerful curse, the unthinking
thing that sometimes goes by the name "Universe"

will reclaim into its own unsense my grandfather.
To not suffer? To breathe no more? There's no difference.
Only that while he's able to breathe, while suffering,
he can bring me more of those wise, wonderful

stories I will listen to ten or eleven
times apiece, and then still forget. I have forgotten
some of his smiling, comfortable voice already.
Next his strong touch will leave my fingers. And finally,

his ever fascinated eyes (widening
now from anticipating his next great adventure)
will pass right by my tightly closed hands. Memories
like these will peek at me from the shades of shadowlands,

and he will walk among them, never completely
appearing. Perhaps someday we'll be together
though: one day, I too will be forgotten;
even by my own self, by this lonely illusion.