The curtain-walled chambers were arranged
like the hutches of an insurance office,
a bank of phone booths, or strange veal pens
where meat is thinned to bone.
Across from where my grandpa was placed,
void of a patient, they were cleaning the room.
From top to bottom they scrubbed,
More for the next to lay
than for the one who had lain.
My father and I did not say a word to each other
or to him the whole time he was there.
Peter Pan cannot be saved.
My grandpa lay from his stroke,
his hands still warm.
I didn't know if the slackness in his jaws
was from the damage to his body
or the removal of his teeth.
His eyelids would slowly open and close,
like those of a newborn mouse
stunned by the difference in light.
His eyes themselves had lost their whites
and become all irises, blue sky aggies
for the amusement of a bully. A lesser man
would have let him die sooner.
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