I can see the spot where great grandmother died
in the bedroom on the second floor
beside the window

I found a description written by my father
the room close with purple and yellow wallpaper
dark with heavy curtains, black wooden bed
the smell of medicine and her, shriveled
in the sheets

Years later my father died
in the same place, in a modern bed
surrounded by creamy walls and white gauze
curtains on the night windows. I watched his body
rise from his own deep ocean of drugs to gulp
at a throat closed the last time

Mother died in father™s bed
the same mattress in the same bruised space
I wonder if the men who bought the house sleep
there, fallen together in the trough
a dangerous place where leaving
has worn the fabric thin