On Finishing a Book

Looking back, I often wonder if the moments
before my mother died moved as quickly
as the pages in a book - knowing death is
imminent, knowing that only words exist
between you and the end of a life you've
followed for days and days and chapters
and chapters - but still the same inner
slowness, because you can never read the
words any faster, or perhaps are afraid to
look ahead, and every tick of the clock
is the same size, the same second to minute
length, and it's only you, you realize, who's
moving slowly, and the anticipation is what
makes the moment seem so quickly to be over.

8/2/13