If I should die
I shall try not to die. This is a given.
Part of the basic programme of instruction
Built into me with the accreting cells
At the beginning.
But I will have to in the end. Things do.
Meanwhile I try from time to time to guess
How it will come and what will happen, after
The lights go out.
I don’t do souls. I work in certainties
Although I wouldn’t rule out altogether
The interesting possibility.
One never knows.
I live alone, along with a small dog.
If I am taken unexpectedly
He won’t know how to jury-rig a flag
Or use the phone.
I don’t believe he’ll grieve. He’ll whine a bit
When he wants out. He’ll feel the need for food.
My immobility will represent
A broken promise.
Flesh will cool, stiffen, soften, become meat
And deliquesce into the irresistible.
Dog will decide I have at last provided
And will partake.
When famine follows feast, he will succumb;
Probably at my side. Nature, who wastes nothing
Will send in other, smaller, needy things
To tidy up.
However the end ends – Bailiffs, Police –
We will be waiting in the dusty dark;
A rough pile of assorted spillikins
And a hairy biscuit.
|