Stock

On our last day together

I bought beef bones from the butcher

thick red and white angular bloody joints

raw meat still clinging to them

You watched me

envelop them in water

flavour them with onion and garlic

then nestle them onto the quiet back burner

for a long slow simmer.

On our last day together

I made a stock

you would never taste,

Plopping thick spoonfulls of the cow's life

Into soups and stews -

This stock -

my bridge

from one life to another

from our past to (my?) future -

that this body

you stroked grabbed caressed held loved

into health

might be properly nourished

on this

blustery dark cruel Febuary night

when I

must

eat

alone