You may be ready to let go
before they are—or it could be
the other way around.
It wasn't you who chose
catheter and cotton smock,
IV and cool bed rail.
Who synchronizes death?
Day and night the same here.
Fluid noise, machine noise
blend into a music.
Now you only stare.
The bone exposed.
How will you tell them when?
Lisa Olsson is a poet, cellist, and painter who lives in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Her debut chapbook was published by Finishing Line Press. She was a winner of the Poetry in the Pavement competition of the Hudson Valley Writers' Center.
