All Flesh is Grass

Please don't let them die, you said.

But only dirt is left in the flower pot, brown and dry, smooth

between my fingers. Bright purple stones laid on top.

    I went through little rooms lined with people looking for hope,

                        people taking blood.

    For days, with you, I mapped doorway to car door,

                    car door, to building,

    every step backward. I forged through a man-made frontier,

    infested with concrete and plastic tubes.

    I found you wheelchairs when I could.

The flower pot itself is a squat smoke stack like on a refinery,

the smoke wafting from it - a small breeze, and the dry soil.  

    My arms became crutches, my legs tubular beams, my body

        a steel framework. Something to hold on to.

    I stood before death, held it back with both hands,

    handling it like a rabid cat-

        by the throat and claws-

    subduing it with paperwork, and cliches.

Younger hands took the frail remains - roots

and leaves - out of the flower pot,

the delicate brown and yellows of

   dead philodendrons.

Please don't let them die, you said.

I said, Of course, like someone looking down train tracks-

    How could I stop their dying even a moment?

    Don't you see how scared I have become?

    I am a young man on the verge of an orphanage.

    I am silly, whimpering again like an ill-fitting window.

    Inside I shake like a train.

I'm sorry. Let's have a drink, you and I. Let's go,

and I'll crush the ice, pour the scotch.

Let's drink to your health. One glass for two, now.

Leave the phone off the hook, leave the bills calling for money.

I'll turn off the computer, the lights, lock the door.

Death is a simple circle, simple as a ring, a wheel, a button.

Death has come, gone, and come round again. 

Drink deeply. I will too. 

Author's Note

----- Please forgive the line breaks. They 'should' be in the right places, but they're not as dramatic as they used to be. Maybe they're not as necessary at all, but I liked working with them and really liked how they were working. This is NOT the first draft - I'd like to think it's close, but maybe not yet.