…then at last it slipped my gasping grasp
and shot down in that white abyss
where all things go that
Could Have Been,
but are not.

My hand still held that stiff clammy clasp
around the hole it left. How this -
this outcome? How? Flat
I sagged then,
hope hissed out.

Then He came - and spoke, as once before:
“Who grasps will lose. But loose to me…”
The loss done, duty
was consent.
I writhed and

Groaned, not in regret - but I was sore.
Then I spread my hand. Aloof, He
as at some beauty,
gazed, and sent
with His hand

A streak of something bright upward.
Heaven, that I falter faint toward,
In a new star glows.
What is it?
Well. He knows.