Death Bed Poem by Patti Masterman

Could you have lived?
No, doubtless you could not
Why then must you go on dying complacently
Resurrected each day but hardly alive
Between boiling the water, and clearing the table
There you lie, quietly gasping; a fish
Wondering where the ocean went; two breaths
For each exhale, like you did
The morning before that evening came
The evening I couldn't breathe at all, because you weren't.

More shocking that nothing seems to change;
I walk to the bedroom; you are there as usual,
Shaking your head imperceptibly, as if to say
No, no improvement; only getting worse
You worried about lights while still coherent
Sensing the looming eternity of darkness.
In the hospital, your blood pressure falling-
Swooning upward, feeling my own body
Begin the long, obliviating dropp away
As they burst into the room with needles drawn
To prevent one of us leaving; I forget which one.

I stoop down to tidy some magazines;
Now you are quiet, resting with eyes closed
You went blind before the end came
I remember once they rolled you over in bed
Your eyes stayed open, as if no longer
Under your volition, and it was upsetting
You; who shunned lack of control, your body
A rack of torture you were barely conscious of-
My enduring prayer to a god I could only doubt.

No longer speaking you hovered, barely there
More ghost than living being; and yet could not leave-
Won't leave, so now I must keep watch
Over your timeless dying; unlikely angel of death
The two of us indistinct in our roles
Yours no longer a speaking part
Mine, watching you try to die
While you witness my attempts to live.