Vigil

On Friday we sank heavy at your side,
waterlogged with the idea of death,
taking turns to flinch when your limbs twitched.

I regarded the bandage, your shorn head,
the family nose, its angles honed on a whetstone.
Your children said it was safe for you to go.

As we waited outside for the nurses to change you,
I saw two women seated in the day room,
cradling baby dolls in their tissue-paper hands.

One raised her milky eyes to me and
I am ashamed to say I turned away.
I am sure there is nothing here worth waiting for.