To Dagny, Grandmother
David Sundby
An unsympathetic desk attendant
in the gaudy scrubs of nursehood
points down a sterile corridor marked
by sedative art and color-coded signs.
Small, motionless, unfamiliar
under faded blue
hospital-issue blankets
Opaque tape on the backs
of your vein-spidered hands.
Short white tufts of hair
frame your tired, finished wrinkles.
A thick plastic hose
pushes life into your lungs,
carving your dry lips.
"Are you done?"
the doctor asks.
I nod.
He turns towards
the monitors lit with small blips
and lines representing your life.
No, your vitals,
not your life.
He pushes two
small buttons and he pronounces
you dead
twenty-seven minutes later.
I walk up the sterile corridor
and past the desk attendant,
still unsympathetic,
outside into the grey drizzle of autumn.
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