the hospice nurse says as my mute
mother-in-law lies in the hospital
bed on her back still as the statue
of liberty, parched lips pinched.
Slick as a magician, the nurse
slides her over to her other side
on a second silk sheet,
until she is facing the wall,
her stiff and staunch back to us.
The morphine should help her
sleep, she says as she fills
vials of the liquid painkiller
and instructs us to administer
the medicine every two hours.
Don’t wake her if she is sleeping.
So we don’t. We do peek around
and see one hand gripping the rail
and the other arm in the air
as she rests on an elbow.
She doesn’t move a muscle,
but still we watch and wait,
not wanting to disturb her.
Finally at bedtime, my husband
touches her shoulder
and she is a snow sculpture
with blue lips and eyelids
closed like Confucius
praying for peace.
Sharon Waller Knutson has published most recently in Verse-Virtual, Muddy River Review, Red Eft Review, Your Daily Poem, Trouvaille Review, Spillwords, Five-Two and One Art. Her first full book collection, What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say (Kelsay Books 2021) and her seventh chapbook, Trials and Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021) are available on Amazon.