The Dying Grandfather

Like a man who smells a storm
he could feel the breath of death’s yawning gullet—
a wind like a blade of ice that slashed through his dirty jacket
and left him coughing up blood and clinging to his daughter-in-law,
withering and rotting like a fig,
softening and crumbling like a fallen aspen,
his cloudy eyes and loose face
showing a despair too strong to brave,
and a man too weak to scream.