What a son will do for love of a mother...

It was an insensitive demand
to be sure
that you relinquish that last vestige
of manhood, that in his presence,
you possess
in order, your dying mother, to address.

It was a gift as precious
as breath
in the presence of
almost death.

Yet with a sharpened blade
(that knoweth not the
tenderness
of sacrifice there made)
cleared stubble from the jaw

and left those of us
who watched
in awe.