My father died in our spare room

Where he had been sojourning

Slowly squeezed small and shrunk

Until eventually he stilled

skin tinted butter wax.

so silent he

Didn’t ask for even a sip of water.

You have to understand

He was 99 years old

Suspected he would survive forever

And surely wanted to.

Instead he slipped away because nobody

Not even my father

Who argued like a lawyer

Can muster a winning case against death.