Room 201

Then came the quarantine. Four white walls
closing in.
Benedictions have become too feeble
to wrestle the debacle of body tissues.
All I hear is nickels clink as my dad leaves
to light a cigarette.
Now the inertia. Taciturn,
pretending to scrutinize cuticles.
As we listened to him respire under the thin bed sheets
we knew the steps to take and arrangements
to make. Forty-five hours later, the
ice thawed
why did we linger by the doorsteps until
the moon
leaned over the private ward?