I am now one year older
than my mother
when she died.

And I am one year younger
than my father when he died.
So I’m right between them

like in that family snapshot
of the three of us (there were
only three of us), me in the middle,

my father leaning in, whispering
in my ear, my mother
overhearing, all of us smiling.

Except that I’m lying down now
in this hospital bed with
something that could be

anything. I don’t feel well,
I say to my mother,
who knows exactly how I feel.

Then I say it to my father,
who said it often enough
when he was dying and I was

so busy living that I had no
time for his dying. And here
comes his reply, which he seems

to whisper now, but so softly
that I have to lean in very close–
and still all I can hear

are these chirping, winking, watchful
machines I’m hooked up to.
He feels so near, though,

it almost tickles–his lips grazing my ear.