Poetry

Just Another Tuesday

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I sit, watching him wither into the mattress,
a body caving in on itself,
breath rattling like screws
at the bottom of a rusted, dented Folgers can.

The nurse declares, any time now,
like she’s giving an account of the goddamn weather,
like she’s seen a thousand souls shuffle off this mortal coil.
Maybe she has –
but not this soul.

He taught me to throw a punch,
drive stick,
bait a hook,
and to be comfortable telling people to go to hell.

Now he’s bones swaddled in hospital sheets –
primarily white with a low thread count.
His fingers twitch like he’s reaching for something.
Another cigarette, a beer, the past.
Who knows?

I want to rage.
To howl at the universe to get bent,
to take this creeping, callous, cancerous death
and shove it up its cosmic ass.

But I don’t.