Just 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.