Sunday, April 5, 2020

Poems for Before I Die, 2


I will die.
I am a human.
Death is always the end
of each human’s story.
Death is there,
Invisible,
Not announcing itself,
Waiting for its chance.
Sometimes it will catch you
Unaware
The sudden heart attack
The massive stroke
Blood clots wandering
through veins, arteries, capillaries.
Sometimes it bangs on your body,
The breathlessness that alerts you
To those blood clots
Collecting in your  lungs.
The abdominal pain that alerts you
To the cancer on some organ
that’s playing Bach’s Requiem.
The cough that whistles
Lung cancer.
Sometimes it’s caught by surprise,
the mammogram,
the pelvic smear,
the EKG.
So many diseases
Waiting to sneak up on you.
If you thought about them
All of the time
There would be no future.
Usually Death comes singly.
You might not know anyone
Who died
All of last year,
Or the year before.
Pandemic is Death made global.
It waves its name in front of your face.
It prances and cavorts and plays
With the doctors and nurses
Who stand between we humans
And Death.
Pandemic assaults everyone
Whether you get sick or remain well.
You are marked
by the fear
by the anticipation
by the relief
of waking up each morning,
Still breathing.

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