last rites

I see her
in the hospital bed.

white as the sheets.
the bones of her

are sticks without flesh.
the blue
veins,

roped in her hand,
sewn down her
slender neck.

her brown eyes set deep into
her skull.

not young, not old.
but nearing an end.

there's numbered breaths. she's

brittle as if left out in the sun.

what waits in the next life
must be
better,

she's told, as the priests
come. the parents,

the son, all
bewildered

with doubts of their own.