No Other Morning Like This by Sheila Packa

I waited a long time for daybreak
listening to the faint sound of a battery in the clock
each minute measured, mechanical
slowly pushing away from my father’s last breath.
There is never a line you can see
between night and morning—they come out of each other.
I turned the alarm off before it rang.
The day to make arrangements
the first day in the world without him, ever again
and in the wan light, my feet found the floor.
Toward the sound of coffee, voices,
I groped my way back that long hallway.