Ultima Thule, David J. Rothman (December 2025)

Ultima Thule

We were sitting in the living room
When Sue opened the bedroom door and said
“Come now.” We did, and I felt like the groom
Called joyously the day that we were wed
To join my bride, now drifting in our bed.
We went and she lay silently, not moving
At all. She wasn’t breathing. Was she…?
No one could say. The room was filled with loving
Grief. They say that hearing is the last
Sense to go. Did she hear us in…time,
As everything she was became the past?
But then she took one long, deep, slow, sweet breath.
She knew her family was at her side.
She had been waiting for us. Then, she died.