In the hospital room where silence grows thick as fog,
I watch my father's hands—
once steady as oak branches,
now trembling like autumn leaves
against the stark white sheet.
The antiseptic burns my nostrils,
sharp and clean as broken glass,
while machines hum their electric lullabies,
counting heartbeats like prayer beads
slipping through tired fingers.
His voice, once thunder rolling across summer fields,
now whispers thin as cigarette smoke,
each word a small bird
struggling to take flight
from the cage of his throat.
I taste the salt of almost-tears,
metallic and warm,
while fluorescent lights buzz overhead
like trapped wasps,
casting everything in surgical green.
The worn leather of his wedding ring
slides loose around his finger—
forty-three years of morning coffee,
of arguments over dinner,
of "I love you" breathed into darkness.
Outside, rain taps against windows
like impatient children,
and I realize all the conversations
we saved for later
are pooling at our feet,
heavy as storm clouds
that never learned to break.
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