I hear his barking from the other room
like a knocking on a door I can’t open
his coughing comes in waves, drowning silence
I clutch my own chest, “breathe”
twice, thrice a day, I see him hobble to the bathroom,
oxygen tank behind him, his ball and chain
there’s no ax of repentance to set him free after
fifty years under the brown leaf’s spell
not in this gray world where mindless cells multiply
and organs surrender to uninvited guests
until one morning, I wake to stillness--though I know
his hacking will abide forever, in memory’s vault