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5 Hospice I wanted to believe in it, the word softer than hospital but still not home— like any other frame house on the street, it had a lawn, a door, a bell— inside, our friend lay, a view of the garden from her room but no lift to raise her from the bed. A sword, the sun plunged across the cotton blankets. I wanted dying to be Mediterranean, curated, a villa, like the Greek sanatoria where the ancients cared for their sick on airy porticos and verandas with stone paths that led to libraries. A nurse entered her room and closed the door. For the alleviation of pain, I praise Morpheus, god of dreams, unlocking the medicine drawer with a simple key, narcotic placed beneath the tongue. In the hall, the volunteer offered us coffee. How could I think the Mozart in G major we played to distract her could distract her? Or marble sculpture in the atrium? ...

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