I went to the end of the hall, your voice echoing a cool breeze in a hot, dense mind "we are going through the same thing, aren't we?" you were up early that morning, and I had been up all night, counting the wood panels in the cabin walls
we sat looking out over the lake in silence that morning in 2004, not knowing that it would be our last trip.
I was up late that night in 2016 thinking of you in my mind no hair on your head was missing
everything comes down to this the way the night falls around my cold hands and fast feet on the pavement thump thump thump
and your heart beating thump thump thump until it didn't and how they didn't really try to keep you alive because you were old but how they kept me in the hospital for weeks in and out of coherence my body heaving for air my mind just asking for a break and when I think of you now clean air over the lake a smile on your face as you died I didn't know what you meant then but now, Ron I do.