at 1:00 am it is dark
looking out the fifth-floor window
sitting in the soft-electric glow
of the monitors, illuminating
the modular room
the door is ajar
nurses chatter
down the hall
come and go
in the gloom
turn my brother
bring his meds
ativan, dilaudid
haldol
the room is warm and dry
sterile like a hospital room…
it is a hospital room
my younger brother is lying
in a hospital bed
he is forty-nine years old
and dying
the compressor at the foot of his bed is
humming
the inflatable mattress he lays on fills and
empties
something that reminds of me of surprise crosses
his face
when it happens, as if he were rising on a
cloud
before being let down, cradled in a metaphor
the encapsulation of time, his time
between birth and the grave
