Quiet.

The walls are too close.
I'll never remember a word of this
Henry James book.

She needs to sign the estate papers.
She can't swallow pills anymore.

The nurses march by the end of the bed like skeletons.
Paper-white, starched like collars.

I've been comparing the different weaves
in the blankets she's too hot for.
There are three:
braided cotton, drop-stitch knitting,
200-count sheets. All pink
and worn thin from too many turns
in an industrial washing machine.

The morphine is going to wear off soon.

I'd kill a man for one more lucid sentence.