Issue 15
Whim
Laura McMahon
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Once Removed
When, where will I go
to die? I know like a cat
it should be alone. And winter seems
the best time. Soft snow muffles
sound, signs of man: grave
ease. But even snow teems
with irrepressible life:
tiny worms fall from the sky,
a riverwater cycle. Loons cry
and I remember I haven't yet traced
their intricate black and white
patterns, drawn analogies.
Onion skins to stars.
Perhaps dying would be easier
behind sterile hospital walls.
Clinical strangers, bland gravies.
But see -- exuberant windows
frame fecund profligacy, full of gulls
and the proximity of fertile
delivery wards doubtless infect
pure desires for oblivion;
the struggle would be hell
on incontinent Earth.
The ceiling TV entertains.
Ozone skims to wars.
For my final whim
I think it must be the Moon.
No sound, no air, gravities
not worth a lunar sigh on the Sea
of Tranquility. Nothing but foreign suns,
past eruptions, and a giant
blue/white/green moon
before I cut the umbilical
cord. Almost biblical to die here
in dust, holding the desiccated
falcon feather left from 1961
ambitions. No regrets.
Here the stars always shine:
blue Rigel hot, red Betelgeuse less.
Orion spins to Mars.
~Laura McMahon
Laura McMahon lives in Oregon and has published poetry online in
Jackhammer and Utmost. Email.
© 2004 by Laura McMahon. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2004 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.