Philip Roth’s father awoke one morning,
shuffled into the bathroom to shave,
and found that half his face had fallen.
The other half stayed put.
After that he died slowly and for a long time.
My own didn’t go like that.
He just turned off, my brother told me on the phone.
I was working in neonatal that day,
scrubbed and ready to examine the two-pound baby
of a teenage junkie.
I remember removing the surgical mask
to talk into the receiver.
My green scrub suit looked absurd–
the whole enterprise suddenly
seemed futile and ludicrous.
Later, starving for the real news of death,
I insisted upon going to the morgue.
He was on a slab, all white.
People say passed away or final rest,
but death looks like nothing else.