When are we going home, he asks
like a child who’s had enough 
of the windy beach, 
the playground swings 
and slide.  
He’s dying of pneumonia 
and a failing heart.   
Propped up in bed 
between pale green walls
he glides in and out of delirium.   
I take his hand, the skin cool and dry, 
tissue-thin.  
At the window a tiny moth 
batters himself 
like a dusty saint
against the pane.
From across the room my father calls,
Sweetheart, when? 
as if the way out or in
is glassy and brief—
a wingbeat.