Lately, the days are gnathic in their grinding down,
ending like a groan slipping through our teeth,
spilling over our lips. And the moon tonight rises
like a fingertip pressed against the glass of this same window
where we have been placed to wait. Bright orange dot,
dragging upwards, poking at us, and we are biting down.
My grandmother, my last living mother, is dying. She asks me 
to wash her dentures and I can’t do it right, this one thing 
she wanted, and worse, I fumble, I drop the lid to the toothpaste
on the hospital floor. She hears the clatter. Thinks I dropped
the toothbrush. Who am I to correct her? I have done enough
of that just sitting here in this chair by her bed while she dreams,
always in the kitchen, talking and talking. She tells me 
to slice the onions or to dice the celery or that the water is boiling,
and from the kitchen window she sees the ocean, watches 
the sky turn pink as muscle while the tide peels itself back 
and the herons appear in slow strides. Then she wakes, sees my face 
in front of that same hospital window and every animated muscle 
in hers suddenly falls, “Oh…” she says. My face the disappointment, 
my face the reminder that all of that is done now.