No one wants to talk about the way our neighbor’s skin is slowing devolving and dropping off her marrows. Her husband’s pickup truck pulls into the driveway; he is her bed-keeper, bath-compliment, husband, mother and maid. Once this cancer has made a feast on all her organs, the gritty skies call for “at home bed-rest,” the nights before death. Wailing aches carry to the tub, following the pain one fights through, sometimes, until the next morning arises with its’ Tulips and Magnolia’s heads abloom. The sick one enjoys the apparitions she sees as window-ghosts: Oak and Elm scatter irrelevantly, when the wind scrambles onto his footage. Past tendered memories of all this raw life, before this dumbing numbing morphine gives its ultimate: a release to the physical ailments… and that’s all she cares for; she’d do anything for the acquittance. grandchild’s golden ringlets got lost in the weeds of grandma’s mind… the pain has ebbed. her recently engaged daughter, gets mother’s drunken approval, floating eyes of doubt and a sense of shame, only a daughter can read. Mom doesn’t care anymore. she wants to go Home, she misses her Father. her alligator eyes try to say enough, but sink back into their sulks for sake of the gleam her youth. her children go to check-up on their parents, grandchildren biting the mother and father’s heels, as they procession down the street. ….no answer at the door, door’s unlocked, they saunter up dad’s proud hardwood floors built ages ago… to find two tiny souls, unbound of earthly sagged-tarnish. Here was where they decided to go together never letting go, assuming their fleshy arms would hold tight together forever. no one knew how her pain soaked into his body, killed him after she was gone. he could have carried a few more years, but the silent kitchen that enveloped its eventual stagnancies and the undefiled side of her folded bed sheets made sure only one half of him was still breathing, feeling, breathing. He did not have to speak, we all know: he must have found what hundreds would give up to find.