How words can kill

Photograph taken by Giuseppe Bartoli.

I thought about the last moments
of my grandfather’s life.
How his heart rate

was the first to crash,
and despite technically being dead,
he took three last short breaths:

in the name of the Father,
and the absent Son, and of his Spirit
as it departed the body.

I believe that each time
we let go of a lover,
a part of us subsequently dies.

I buried myself for the first time
at twenty-one, then twice more
every ten years since.

Like three long exhalations,
my heart paused to contemplate
the soul slowly succumbing to sorrow,

proving that figurative language
can bring about a more tragic death
than sudden cardiac arrest.