You never got to ask whether it hurt or not 
because by the time he knew, he was gone.  
And not gone like you had wished him, oh so many times
but really gone, further away than you thought 
your wishes could send him.

Did he cry out when the pain came coursing down his arm,
did he have time to think perhaps it was nothing,
merely the strain of that last blow he launched 
in your direction before the night closed over him like a fist?