I chase boxes around the legal page:
check or leave empty:
not multiple choices, not decision trees.
My father is dying in the next room.
The hospice nurse is of genuine cheer,
but her prayers lack the necessary wings.

Outside the window, word has gotten around
that the bird feeders are empty,
house gutters need a ladder and a brush.
The one-pie cherry tree has relaxed
into an autumn of little expectation.

The morphine drip cruises the blind
curves of his going. He is not the puzzle
whose pieces free themselves to leave
a trail of his whereabouts.
His was never the diplomacy of half-truths,
nor the cheap forgery of character.

Siblings have volunteered me—
as conscientious as our father—
to take in hand the pen, the indelible X,
against the inconsolable of history.