The Moment Before

The moment before pain
Comes to stay haunts the memory
Claims every waking thought, marks
Every dreaming signpost, starts us
To waking in the vain hope of relief
From a loss, a hollow, an unnamed grief.
Did the television warn you?  Did you hear?
Did you see?  Or did that last, queer
Vivid instant of well being slip past
Unremarked, unsavoured, as it must
For all of us, and for me, your daughter
Even as I think these thoughts
Form these words?