Quietus
by Andrew Gibeley
The night before we unplugged you
we ate burritos and accidentally entered
a Petco before buying a large white
poster board to collage your life’s photos
upon for everyone to enjoy at the
post-funeral luncheon on Friday
We visited you one last morning
and there were air-pumped plastic sheets
like pool rafts along your hairless legs
which I pressed down with my fingers
so your frail, pale skin was unexposed
to the elements of the ICU, which smelled
raw and stale and sounded silent
The nurse told us it could take hours
or even a day or two since you still
breathed on your own a bit over the
ventilator tubed down your throat
but you died within minutes before all
our crying eyes, choking viciously
on your final gasps of air, then nothing
That night the summer sky erupted
thunder storming all around us while we
drove through the dark in the downpour
to pick up our 9:30 pizza and white wine
as your umbrella broke in my hands
and your body lay idle in the morgue
waiting out the lightning like us
we ate burritos and accidentally entered
a Petco before buying a large white
poster board to collage your life’s photos
upon for everyone to enjoy at the
post-funeral luncheon on Friday
We visited you one last morning
and there were air-pumped plastic sheets
like pool rafts along your hairless legs
which I pressed down with my fingers
so your frail, pale skin was unexposed
to the elements of the ICU, which smelled
raw and stale and sounded silent
The nurse told us it could take hours
or even a day or two since you still
breathed on your own a bit over the
ventilator tubed down your throat
but you died within minutes before all
our crying eyes, choking viciously
on your final gasps of air, then nothing
That night the summer sky erupted
thunder storming all around us while we
drove through the dark in the downpour
to pick up our 9:30 pizza and white wine
as your umbrella broke in my hands
and your body lay idle in the morgue
waiting out the lightning like us
Andrew Gibeley is a writer in Brooklyn, NY. Born and raised in a small town outside Hartford, he graduated from Hamilton College cum laude in 2016 with honors in creative writing and a minor in theatre. He completed the NYU Summer Publishing Institute and is currently a publicist at Abrams Books.