For days we watched your bones
lurk beneath, like brush emerging.
when a river’s level falls. The last
morning we thought we saw
fear in your eyes, but couldn’t tell
if it was yours or ours. It went away.
You breathed, and your next breath
was long in coming, then never came.
The woman who held your hand
and chanted “Jesus, Jesus” put your
hand down. There was a kind of sanity,
as if our eyes, double-visioned
for so long, refocused to distinguish
death from your life, which stood
before us, vivid as the tiger lilies
framed by the window by your bed.