I wrote a poem once, not one of my favorites, but anyway it was years ago. A young girl, 21, was engaged to one of my employees and became pregnant. In her 8th month, she got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, and collapsed. She blocked the door with her body. A blood clot had traveled from her leg to her lung and killed her instantly, but her boyfriend didn’t know that, and only after he’d removed the pins from the hinges to get to her did he call 911. It took too long and the baby died, too, and later he showed me pictures of the two of them in their single casket. The baby, Natalie was to be her name, was full grown, and she slept eternally in her mother’s arms, and it was as tragic a thing as I’ve ever seen. It’s one of my irrational fears, that this will happen to me. I’m certain it won’t, but it still haunts me. Back then I wrote this sort-of-poem about it, and maybe by splashing it out on the internet I will rid my silly mind of this demon.
I sing aloud of hopeful troubadours
I think of men whose wives were small and neat
And babies born with smartly kicking feet
All mine, all yours
And then I think again
On a milky breast that never got to nurse
I hope that when I go
My eyes close on
Something
More romantic than a toilet
Was it clean?
Vomit
The only dram to help him after
The frantic frenzied search for occupation
In the wake of a fall
He picks up and discards them all
A new picture in his wallet every week
Still the ring rests on a chain around his throat
And I wonder how he sleeps
And for her and her, an endless rest
Arm in arm and breast to breast
In some other universe
They are teaching her to walk today
I think that may be the most tragic story I have ever heard. I can see why it would freak you out. I am not a poet, but I think it evokes the proper feeling.