​Powerless

His eyes focused and his brow furrowed firmly and confidently, like they were above being ashamed of their lopsided frame. But if you looked too long you could see a sadness within those eyes that stared into nothing. A sadness that seemed to surrender to its own weight and reveal defeat. Like a soldier who knew his side was losing.

Poe felt the humid ocean wind blow across his face. The wind animated his unkempt hair that he had been avoiding cutting because of his receding hairline.

He was knelt there with one hand on his knee and his other balled up in a fist in front of his face. His eyes were fixed in its direction but staring past it.

No matter how hard he squeezed, or what angle he held his fist – little grains of sand would drip out steadily. Sometimes one-by-one, and sometimes a small stream would loose. They, too, caught in the wind as they became airborne.

He could no more save a grain of sand from the wind than his wife from tuberculosis.

A bitter, numb, pounding was left where she used to be.

He whispered to himself,

“Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”