Papa lost his papa to a poison in his veins,
Then followed in his footsteps, heading straight toward the grave,
But papa lived to watch my mama grieve her very own,
And I learned in early childhood that the hospital was home.
Now papa’s oldest sister, and his second from the last,
Are forced to sit and watch as their own bodies fail to last.
Meanwhile I’m watching mama cry into the telephone,
‘Cause her papa’s ‘cross the ocean and he’s dying all alone,
And she’d give away her soul to merely kiss him once goodbye,
But the flights are too expensive, and the oceans are too wide.
I yearn to take their suff’ring, pray it kills me in their place,
But I couldn’t make my mama claim another lifeless face.

- p. winter