In your final days you entered the stage in a body
Near skeletal, with skin the feel of parchment ready
To tear, with that smell of sullen sweetness—was it
Cheap perfume from the last user who took that prop
As his own to exit from what he called his life?

Father comes then goes in the morning
Looking into the bathroom mirror,
Mother, too, when I take the pills
And wait for the blood pressure reading.
Where do they go the rest of the time

On her deathbed paralyzed by a stroke she broke everyone’s heart
By doing a hula with the right hand she could still move. Her eyes
Closed, her mouth locked in what might have been a smile, her hand
Held for a moment the clouds that gathered over the Ko’olaus,
Then flowed with the streams that tumbled down to the sea.

The days had grown shorter,
The dusk deepened
And we’d been called once,
Maybe twice, to return home.
Some went but enough of us