Morphine in Hospice

The lungs forget their choreography,  

like a metronome ticking out of time.  

Fluid pools where air used to hum,  

symphony unraveled, strings snapping silent.  

The body, still knowing to fight,  

raises an alarm loud as thunder.  

Panic blooms in the chest,  

a desperate clawing, invisible and raw.  

Morphine whispers to the frightened nerves,  

"Rest, there is no fire, no flood."  

It molds the sharp edges of the ache,  

faithful sculptor of soft, shallow exhale.  

The heart, tired of running uphill,  

finds calm in the slowing river.  

Each breath becomes less a battle,  

more like the closing of a quiet story.  

What was gasping becomes a rhythm,  

a lullaby sung in slow motion,  

until stillness arrives and holds it—  

a final consonance, air folding away.