Death Watch

Morning breaks through dreamless skies.
Night surrenders easily.
Summer rises once again
in folds of zinnia, daisy, marigold.

All of that is outside.
Inside, funeral roses still bloom.
They infest the air
my daughter no longer breathes.

Her scent is no longer everywhere.
Not in her t-shirts which I wear.
Not in her make-up, clothes,
and shoes her mother keeps.

It is another summer day
she has not seen, a day
without our smells and shouts,
another day without her warmth, her smile.

My brother-in-law sits now
by his father's hospital bed.
The man feels death coming fast
and orders his son to buy a funeral suit.

My brother-in-law sits among good-byes,
his mother and sisters, and his father
whom the priest has already blessed,
while my sister cries in my wife's arms.