Just before he died, my daughter asked him, “What is your favorite color?”

And he said it was yellow.

“Send me a sign when you’re gone,” she said.

He nodded weakly, though he appeared to dismiss her.

 

“I saw a yellow bird. Here’s a picture,” she texted.

And then the yellow butterflies flitted by.

She never doubted Grandpa’s sending a sign.

 

Who watched your wife die for 15 years, the last five

under my roof, as we both gasped at her final inhale?

Who changed your i.v. every 8 hours when they almost killed you?

Wasn’t it I who wet your lips when they were dry, set your game up

when the sickness took away every last pleasure you relied on

to help you forget, tuck her under your pillow at night when you dreamed

her young, dreamed her beside you, spooned in sleep of the living?

Didn’t I watch boxing and Gold Rush and the Angels games

with you, despite my mad thirst to work, work, work to forget, to pacify?

 

Where was my sign?

I cried at the stop light, the traffic a crawl.

Did I kiss him enough, tell him I loved him?

And I saw it then, the cloud break, the golden rays at dusk,

last shudders of daylight, like yellow hands upon my heaving shoulders.

 

I see you.