If I were able to take your hands
– hoping they would not, any longer, be snatched away –
and press them to my cheek,
as you always did when you had strength to lift them yourself,
I would take time to memorise every crevice
– the soft lemon scent of your palm,
the dormant strength in those tender fingers curled around mine –
and never forget a single thing.
If I were able to bring you comfort
– in this room of strip lighting, urgent voices, clinical gloves –
I would speak of days in the forests
picking blackberries and mushrooms
and pointing, sometimes, with hushed voices,
to the unexpected sight of rabbits gathered by the stream.
We would speak of future trips, too, hearts ablaze,
if you could hear,
if you could speak,
if you could remember who I am,
If a barrier didn't surround your bed with warnings to stay back:
Contamination Zone.
A response to @daily.prompt's freewrite prompt, keep your distance – because I still feel, in some ways, that I am unravelling the heartache of being unable to visit or interact with loved ones in need during 2020 and 2021. Speaking to my hospitalised grandmother through a pane of glass is one memory that still cuts to the core – though I do recall the staff with great fondness, and how they bent the rules to allow my mother to visit when she "shouldn't" have been allowed in. A complex and heartwrenching time.