The Terrible Shears

"The terrible shears went clack clack clack."
D. J. Enright

Today would have been your 90th birthday, Mum.
Last month, you were slipping away from us
in hospice care, diagnosed with kidney failure.

Such a well-appointed room; outside, a buddleia
swarmed with butterflies. Donna noted that
you were too far gone to enjoy such luxury.

As with Dad, dying of cancer three decades ago,
I wished I could drag you back from
where you had gone, use the jaws of life

to restore you to what you'd been. But oh no,
the terrible shears, they never stop do they,
the terrible shears going clack clack clack.



Christopher T. George