Grammar check

I don't think it's a dependant clause. They are independant thoughts.
I sure wouldn't put an exclamation point in there. Not with the mood of the poem.

That said, it's fine with a comma.


Eyes Fastened With Pins
Charles Simic - 1938-

How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters
Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer. Death,
Meanwhile, in a strange
Part of town looking for
Someone with a bad cough,
But the address somehow wrong,
Even death can't figure it out
Among all the locked doors...
And the rain beginning to fall.
Long windy night ahead.
Death with not even a newspaper
To cover his head, not even
A dime to call the one pining away,
Undressing slowly, sleepily,
And stretching naked
On death's side of the bed.

It's a poem, normal rules of grammar don't apply.

These are two independent clauses joined together to make the flow of the poem work.

Grammar checks my lunch box
before I go to school
She irons my clothes and cleans my shoes
My grammar’s really cool.