When you watch someone dying it feels
like death should steal life soon and doesn’t,

like every wobbling wheel of breath is the end,
and isn’t, like a tooth extraction, like even God

is pulling hard but needs a midwife. I pray Jesus,
pray Mother of Jesus, pray back and forth begging

them to open the kitchen door because close friends
always come to our kitchen door and when at last

it happens, it is as subtle and soft as any ballet—
complete: no splintered pieces. No wreck this shed,

freed flesh soothed by an unseen hand, as though
the body breathed afresh, even as breath ceased.