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The image of oxygen mask cloaking the wheeze
reappeared in dreams
and about this the grandson would wonder for ages,
at night sinking beneath grandmother's flannel sheets,
even cupping hand over mouth as he breathed
under three blankets, a comforter, an afghan
taken from the foot of the grandfather's empty bed.
The exercise felt like scarcity, like taking on water
but the boy would will himself to hold the pose, hold it,
hold it until lungs burned, til fear gripped. When
the plug was pulled the boy remembered grandpa held
for a good eight minutes; later the uncle would whisper:
every man has his limit. The words fell without
emotion, and the dark judgment stuck like the
linseed gleam in the ICU. Where would mine be,
the boy wondered, where would mine be?