Last Steps

The sky is beginning to whiten.
The old hag squats.
She is squeezing out a new day
from between her legs.
This birth is to her what most matters,
not her death, not pain.
As a red sun begins to emerge,
she takes breath and dies.
She has done what was required.
She has lived her life.
Every bird in its morning rise
shouts Hallelujah!

My sister is pregnant with death.
There is little time.
She is sending out love with her eyes
in all directions.
She has now no pain
that for months was debilitating.
Morphine was the answer to that.
Now she takes control,
as her life requires she must:
her last act of love.
She is poised on the edge of what comes:
it’s a perfect dive.