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