The peircing tear

 

      "Just one last bite,

aah...aan,
  Good boy."

Those words unfurled
    a heavy silence,
  a blanket muffling
the present.

  Lost in the amber
of memory,
    I whispered,
  "Isn't that the echo
    of Nana's gentle hand?"

             The scene sharpens,
    edges bright and clear,
  a daguerreotype unearthed,
      suddenly breathing
    with forgotten light.

In his voice,
  gravel and oak,
    a deep rumble
  that now cradles me
      in warmth,
  he praised that small bite
as if I'd captured the moon.

    Invisible fingers
curve my lips upward,
    etching a ghost
of a smile.

But,
  a crimson bloom
unfurling today
    must inevitably
wither with the dawn.

Now tears,
  like shards of glass,
  pierce the soft veil
    of reveries and smiles,
  twisting the upward curve
      into a landscape of regret.

    The guiding star
  now flickers dimly
    in the fading embers
          of memory.

A once-soft breeze
      now whips into a
    shattering squall of
          what-ifs...