I'm tired now, I'm going to sleep.

And he did.  And later, when he stopped breathing, they worked on him to keep him going, but when they intubated him, his heart gave up, too.

for my Donald

Coming Home

It wasn’t how high she looked to find his face,
or that he said before she told him,
the years producing careful draftsman numbers bored her;

it wasn’t his casual laugh for palomino mice
incarcerated on her kitchen table next to hooded rats in a ferret cage,

nor the wryly mocking wrinkle beside his eyes as she beat him
two-of-three at Scrabble.

It was when he said his birthday is the day before her dad’s.

That night in the movies, he put an arm around her shoulder--
and she was home.

Editted for line breaks.  Not quite so klunky now.  I think.