Sonnet for Leni

It’s not your death that hurts--it’s what comes after:
  The way the loss gets slowly wiped away
Like distant echoes of remembered laughter
  Fading out day by day by boring day.
Time is like bleach.  Time fades the brightest hues.
  Time stops the bleeding while it blunts the edge.
Time bleeds the reds and washes out the blues.
  Time walks us step by step back from the ledge.
The brutal truth is, every wound gets healed,
  And sometimes never even leaves a scar.
The blade that is our soul will be annealed.
  It’s cold and cruel and the way things are:
     Absence, not Hate, is Love’s most patient rival;
     It’s not your death that kills--it’s my survival.

copyright 2010 Matthew J Wells