We stopped our
aging silver Buick
in the Avondale lot,
my brothers and sister
swinging the doors open
and falling over each other
on the way out.

My grandpa bought us
vanilla ice cream and soda,
because we wanted sugar
and didn’t know
about coronary arteries
or overdue surgeries.

Fifteen minutes
from Lake Erie
in a sea-foam panelled
sprawling farm-house,
the heart monitor
uncovered the clues.

The swaying barn
rotting outside
sheltered the cows
and calves,
and the horses
soon dying
in human laps.

Within that white bed
in the moments before death,
her heart stops and goes
and stops and goes,
grandkids mid-float.

Laboured breathing
like a child trying
to blow up a balloon,
then letting it loose.

The car was still
warm in the road,
and faced the house
as if it had known.

The bed and body
and surrounding property
intertwined in
a sustained silence,
then transformed.
My siblings and I
wandered toward
the edge of the yard
to explore.