EXTREME UNCTION Poem by Manuel António Pina

A brief and affable sorrow
surfacing in the eyes, a distant disappointment,
you died as if gently begging pardon
for making us lose time.

You were in a rush but didn't show it,
you feared that we were not prepared,
and, hovering above us, you waited
for us to say it all, and do what needed to be done.

Dying is no reason to be proud,
but you were too exhausted to explain yourself.
And worst of all, it was July,
vacations set, relatives already gone.

We had taken the children away,
made our phone calls, chosen our words.
The room was now in order, the bed remade
with freshly laundered sheets. Nothing missing, but your death.