The Dying Poet

The Dying Poet Suffers Visitors

They enter like thoughts, intermittent and unrelenting as the pain.
Some halting as first lines, some bustling with clipboards.
Others carry bed pans, and sing Jamaican lullabies.

Each is borne with an equanimity peculiar to her. Admitted more
than welcomed, they enter as democratic as rain. Those that would
settle her, those unsettling bearing food, flowers, burdensome to her now.

“Look!” she says pointing to a six pack of applesauce, pausing for breath,
“It took me an hour to eat one of those.” The foiled daffodil is banished
to the community room. It may well outlive her.


The Dying Poet Gives Dictation

Mercifully medicated, she floats on her mattress of air.
Rafts down the Congo, the Connecticut.
Pillows support her chest, keeping passages open.

As I enter she says, “Glad to see you. Do you have a pencil?”
I want you to write something down,” Then she fashions a sheet
from an opened envelope. I sit close to hear her.

Eyes closed, she begins, “The scene is an intersection in the middle
of nowhere. Could be during the Dust Bowl, or after the Depression,
could be now. It doesn't matter.

Rubble lies in piles, what once was a tavern, gas station,
who knows what. There's a makeshift sign that reads,
Sinners welcome. And word gets out that Jesus is coming.

All over town people jump to it. Drive downtown for perms,
get cars washed, take up positions at town hall,
nervously slick back cowlicks, check their watches.

Meanwhile He's arrived elsewhere. "Where do you think He is?”
She looks directly at me, pupils dilated.
Her mouth in a wry smile.

I start to answer, but disappointment crosses her face
and I realize I'm flubbing my cue, so shrug and ask,
“Where?” Gathering strength she continues,

“He's whooping it up at the crossroads. Lifting a glass
with the carousers, having a grand time while everyone
in town is left waiting.

I smile, say, “Amen.”
She sighs then continues, “If I had it to do over,
I think I'd cut loose more.”


The Dying Poet Holds Class

My next visit begins with her finger raised
and referring to yesterday's dictation,
“A question. Is there judgment there?”

I pause, 
moving more at her pace now. Pause some more.
“Perhaps we confuse punishment with judgment.”

She considers. Responds, “I like that.”
I start to prattle on, but she waves me off.
We sit in silence.

Days pass. I pull up a chair next to nuns who call her
by her other name, chosen half a century ago
before she left the convent.

On the positive aspects of hospice care my comment,
“You deserve good treatment.” She wheels around in bed,
faces me, “Nobody deserves anything.”


The Dying Poet Stops Dying

She's sitting up, combing her hair as I enter.
“My power grid has changed up. Energy's steady now.
Nobody can explain it.”

Hands raised, I wiggle my fingers
in cautious jubilation like an excited Quaker.
All the while wondering if this is her final flourish.

“I'm still dying you know.”

“I understand.”

“Good. There's so much denial going on. One of the sisters
was given a week to live. Twenty years later, she'd cry when
another passed, leaving her. By the way, I've solved a Big 
question.”

“Really?” Which one?” I ask.

“I now know the sound of one hand clapping.
Dropped my buzzer last night, and no one came.
My voice too faint, I decided to clap for help.”

She raises her hands, demonstrates,
emitting a muffled sound loud as a dog crossing a room,
a carpeted room.

We both break into laughter.
She breathless, me near tears at her grace.
The demise of the body can be a funny business.


The Dying Poet Shuts Down

She sleeps and sleeps now. Last visit she woke up 
crying, “Wild dreams!” Wild dreams!”
But that was days ago.

Her important eyes never open again.
The room is full of her listening.
Friends, staff meet over her, press flesh, ours, hers.

It's almost a party atmosphere.
A woman in a purple hat pushes a cart closer,
offers Kool-aid in paper cups.

I'm up near my friend's face. She looks like a blind newborn.
“It's me,” I say hopefully. Then hear my name on her lips,
and a cadenced, purposeful sentence

completely untranslatable,
spoken from some back room between worlds
where Mother Morphine holds her close.


The Dying Poet Becomes a Church

She stirs as I lift Breeze, the greyhound therapy dog
onto her bed. My friend's hand is not much bigger 
than the dog's brindled paw.

Later, finally alone with her,
I sit while she snores, wind gusting at the sill
lined with Easter lilies.

Venetian blinds clink. The door slams.
She doesn't wake up. I study her bruised feet,
blood pooled in her soles.

Something about the structure of her face...
ceiling of the palate seen through her open mouth...
carotid artery's quick pulsing, puts me in mind

of that small Dingle oratory of perfectly balanced stones
and the swallow who dove repeatedly, swooping
at the lintel, homing.