Purple

(sigh.)

The trees wave goodbye
as you blow past them
with your
blue wind.

Bats take flight
into your new,
cold blanket,
wings up in salute,
forgetting their formation.

Machines,
their company no longer relevant,
dryly wail one-tone dirges
and blink
like those broken traffic lights
where the wait to move on
is slow.

A spiderweb of invisible IVs
hold life in check around
the bed,
allowing only eyes to animate,
tears
dropping
like bridge jumpers,

And I am standing.

I always stand,
the dry-eyed violinist
afraid to move my eyes from his chest
(with his purple heart
spilling into the darkness)

...and forgetting to breathe.