You were my gift until
Death bought a vicious kiss.
A last breath, like silk on your lips,
So easily it slipped
And I sit, like an empty box at Christmas,
Unwrapped and laid bare,
Waiting to be put out.

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I wrote this after a friend lost her battle with cancer. She was young and her husband was much older than her. They had always assumed that he would die first, but it wasn't to be and after loosing his wife, my friend's husband was bereft. She had loved Christmas, so the gift box analogy was particularly fitting. It took him a long time to start living again.