Two More Minutes

Let me tell you what it’s like….

To have a man

Die on your couch.

Mouth full of un-chewed pizza

Poised to slide with easing grace

Down his throat

So loaded up on blue oxy’s and Xanax

Crimson red wine

He’s stopped breathing

And moist beads of death dew

Patiently spread across his skin

I think I am screaming

“Wake the fuck up!” and shaking him

But his head lolls and rolls

Like a marble

His fingers turning a lovely, lavender blue

While I stand there

With a phone in my hand

My soul and body shivering

Being adjacent to HIM:

The venerable. The dazzling.  

EVER OMNIPOTENT death.  

I hear myself screaming to no one

Alone with a dead man

And then

And then

His mother arrives and we fold him

Knock his lolling head into the

Stone cement stairs

Push him into the car

Curled and sagging like a sausage.  

And before we left,

While I stood inept and shaking  

I felt his soft, strange heart behind me

Alive and Alarmed

Auburn hair, bright and beautiful,

Begging me

Nudging me

Pleading with me

To get him off that couch

Because he wasn’t ready

He wanted to stay

And death was not his companion.