How Do I Say Goodbye? 

How do I say goodbye,
silence your voice, relinquish
your smile, the touch of your hand?
How do I turn away
and loose the thread
that tethers you to yesterday,
while stitching you into tomorrow?
How do I face the void,
the unimaginable ache of absence?  

Decades later I still search the old pain,
probing the same terrain for release.
I still pass your ghost in unexpected ways,
a voice in the background, movement in the mirror,
in a crowd, a small boy’s question. 

Loss weaves its pattern into the fabric of a life.

Pam Patterson © 2003