All quiet on the fifth floor front,
No clunky machinery nestled in a winding metropolis of tubes,
no lab coat-bedecked parade of furrow-browed doctors
beating back the senseless darkness
with their arsenal of knowledge.
No hallmark-emblazoned get well cards,tiny cardboard buttresses of tenacity.
This room is a strange oasis of acceptance,
tucked away
from the physiological war-zone of the hospital,
the army of glinting steel scalpels and harsh chemical cures.
This room is a two-week twilight,
fluttering with the shadows of consolation-murmuring nurses,
administering sweet escapes for a body
accustomed to siege.
Heavy silence, permeated only by shallow breaths
that ebb and flow like a receding tide.
Here in this placid, florescent bleached sea,
paper skin
against paper sheets,
my grandmother finds a final peace.