a wind upon the cheek

the door opens & death
dances around us &
we feel it creeping up our
skin, its fingers finding their way toward
our throats. for only a moment
the door is open,
or a day, yet in that
darkness we see more than we’ve
ever beheld in the
rest of our lives, all at once,
when suddenly somebody
is gone. we march on,
into a new year, into a new
set of circumstances, with
one less than when we’d begun.
the door is closed now and we each
breathe a sigh of relief, for
we are the ones who are here,
still here for a while, until one
day it must open again,
and it is we who are
summoned to step silently through
to the other side.