I am told that the house of your mind 
has been swept clean. The walls are washed white, 
and the rooms emptied of furniture ... nor are there 
paintings anywhere or plants on the stone floor or in 
the open courtyard at your center. 

If your soul still attends to the words of my poems, 
or the bells I ring to the four directions for you, or 
shines that bright light through the window frames, 
there is no positive sign. Meanwhile outside 
the world of your bed, life and death continue. 

It seems to me a blessing you have not suffered 
the suicide of your brother Jimmy, whom you tried 
so many years to protect from those who prey 
on such as him, another blessing that your mind 
emptied before the blood was drained from your son. 

Still another blessing to never have known those 
grandchildren lost in the three shipwrecks of that son’s 
fatal descent, and too, your daughter’s loss 
of the father of her sons, to similar demons. I speak 
these stories to the light I imagine remains beyond 

the shell of you, here on earth. I ask your body to release 
your spirit, because the years of dying have been so 
many now, and the years of my watch, and oh how 
I hope for you there is love on the other side of death, 
and others who called you beloved on earth wait there. 

—An earlier version of this poem appeared in the 30/30 Project at Tupelo Press (July 2024).

Bio: Thomas A. Thomas