Jackie was connecting track
on his train.
I stood in the doorway.
What time was it?
He was busy and I was leaving.
He looked up.
His little hands held the track
but they were still.
“I love you Papa,” he said,
“I don’t want you to die.”
There was a derailment in my heart!
I stared at my engineer, stunned.
“I love you Jackie,” I said carefully,
“I’m not going to die.”
He smiled at the track
and fitted the piece.
I didn’t move.
Where had death entered?
What did Jackie know that I didn’t?
Where did this come from?
“Do plants die?” was the question
days before, watching winter outside,
and I answered,
“They go to sleep Jackie,
and come back in the spring.”
And he smiled.
We left the window then,
and played.
That was days before.
Did Jackie see winter
coming inside me?
Did he understand fate?
Do angels cry when God is with them?
I kissed him with a cheerful hug.
“Papa will be back,” I said, and left.
November entered my lungs.
I felt winter coming inside me,
and said,
“You’ll have to wait,
I’m evergreen.”