Unit 042: Me and the Reaper. It's complicated.

Concentration: clutch the duvet close.
Constellations: focus tight the night sky.
Consternation: a young boy will not sleep.
Contemplation: virgin thoughts on mortality.
Computations: irises betray the cogs beneath.
Informations: data churning – a furious pace:
Conversations, consultations, correlations, education,
expectations, observations, connotations, affirmations,
confirmation, intimations, implications, explanations!

DETONATION

PANIC STATIONS
Pupils shoot wide
eclipse the moonlight.

I put my death inside a box.

As I returned from outer space,
A broken man of forty-two,
Body ebbing, in a waltz with the hospital beeps
≪where did all these people —≫
I’ve made my peace, it’s time to go,
Impatient with their efforts.
I took my death outside the box.

I have stared long at all the spaces,
All of the spaces on all of the walls,
Yet I’m still here on this rock in space.
One day, my therapist implored:
“In your head, you’re two feet in!
Two feet in and paralysed.
Imagine, maybe,
one foot in, and
one foot out?”
Fuck off!
Are you for real?
Much to my dismay,
one day that penny dropped.
Stupid coin. I bought a moment,
one more Wednesday in the park:
I threw the ball he’d catch we’d play.
A little snout, anticipation;
A smile redeeming all.
A hard-won penny
buys me
now.

I put my death inside a box.