And Is It Still a Matter of Law?

Walker, Sue

AND IS IT STILL A MATTER OF LAW?

   She said that he had asked to die;
   she said there was now no cure,
   and she sat by his bedside
   and sang "Matchmaker, Matchmaker"
   over and over, reminding him
   of how it had been for the past sixty years,
   telling him of their long life together.
   "Last year," she said: "do you remember
   our grandson Jacob's Bar Mitzvah,
   remember his pledge to raise
   money for a friend suffering
   with leukemia?"

   She said that she wrestled with the Law
   and its hold on both of them,
   and she asked herself what had been wrought
   in 3000 or so years since King David
   ordered the execution of a soldier
   who had put King Saul out of his misery.
   Times have changed, she reckoned,
   and she could with three words
   tell the doctors: "Let him go.
   It is only a matter of days."
   He no longer responded
   when she called his name,
   but she couldn't, couldn't,
   no she couldn't, no matter what,
   take his life, his soul.