Poem: Not a Person, but an Institution

Not a Person, but an Institution

My grandfather is dying six thousand miles away
while I am fishing from a fishtank
with a character named Fiji
among scattered charts and half-eaten donuts
drinking coffee like water this midnight at the office
trying to get the last numbers to pan out,
this far removed, a sanctuary built
of technology and occupation
so different than the world of my grandfather
who practiced pediatrics from the first floor
of his house, the line of babbling babies
stretching out the door,
a time which has gone out and around the block.