How To Save A Life [Terzanelle]

"I don't properly know how to save a life - "
He says under his tainted nicotine breath,
"I don't properly know how to save a life - "

And a tear falls as he looks toward his wife,
"Babe please, just open your beautiful eyes!"
He says under his tainted nicotine breath.

He whispers her softening heart dreadful lullabies,
And he rests his head upon her cold hand,
"Babe please, just open your beautiful eyes!"

Etching out three words on an old wedding band -
"I love you" is all he knew proper to say,
And he rests his head upon her cold hand.

Her breath gets slower in the light of day,
Laying still in a monitored hospital bed,
"I love you" is all he knew proper to say.

And there's bandages wrapped over her head,
With a tear, she opened her chestnut eyes,
Laying still in a monitored hospital bed.

"Why do you sit beside me telling me lies?"
She asks with a hoarse voice and -
With a tear she opened her chestnut eyes.

He looked to her as he grabbed her hand,
"You say you don't know how to save a life, why?"
She asks with a hoarse voice and -

He looks to her with tears in his eyes,
"My life was saved because of you, but yet -
You say you don't know how to save a life, why?"

He sat beside her, eyes full of regret,
"I don't properly know how to save a life - "
"My life was saved because of you, but yet -
I don't know how to properly save a life."

-Jenna Elphick
May 7, 2007

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The Terzanelle is a poetry type which is a combination of the villanelle and the terza rima forms. It is a 19-line poem consisting of five interlocking triplets/tercets plus a concluding quatrain in which the first and third lines of the first triplet appear as refrains. The middle line of each triplet is repeated, reappearing as the last line
of the succeeding triplet with the exception of the center line of the next-to-the-last stanza which appears in the quatrain.

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