WAITING
While my grandmother waits for death
in the other room—her lips cracked as
brown sugar, her fingers moving in sleep
against the buttons of her nightgown—
the women in my family play cards.
They forget to eat. Cry about past lovers.
Sort bills and outdated subscriptions.
They sit on the floor, taking turns massaging
out the grief and answering worried calls
from friends, clergy, neighbors who
sloppily soak the phone with their regret—
I should have called earlier but the holidays,
you know? There is camaraderie among
women and death. Both know how to
become a vigil. To be busy and still.
An usher from one room to the next.
One sister drove through the night.
One daughter wore the same clothes
for a week. I was wrong; my grandmother
isn’t waiting for death. Instead, drifting
in and out of a much softer word. It is
the living who wait. Who count the hours,
the morphine doses, the last requests
for ice chips—with their card games and
their tears and their own hushed regrets
from all the time they had nothing to wait for.