He Was A Good Man.

A reflection on mortality.

The tooth came loose in my mouth,
Aluminum taste,
blood trickling.
I sat on the porch,
looking out.
This affluent neighborhood
Twinkling as the season turned pale,
the Pacific NorthWest
overpowering my nostrils.

The magnolia tree, we planted too late
in those summer days of renewal.
A 9-branched candelabra; bare,
never had it borne the flowers I so desperately wanted.
Winter solstice beckoned.
My insistence was we should become pagans
And retire staid religious traditions.

To the west, he sat, eyes tethered to the stars,
Meditating on the simple life he led.
My wife called it pathos.
Six months, the doctor had said.
Generosity at its worst.

Nights later, the doorbell rang.
His wife,
a rancid specimen of silence and bile,
Shaken, in tears, asking me to help -
He’d fallen in the shower.
I duly obliged; what else does one do?
He was a good man.
She was neither.

There he lay, hunched,
sallow clingfilm loose on alabaster tiles.
Wrapping my arms around his stomach
The bones, the sinew, the muscle
Too close to the touch.
Acetone fumes filled the air.
His unpainted nails were a telltale sign,
These were his last days.

I navigated to a leather club chair,
Inches from a television screen.
His now oversized pajamas shrouded the truth.
I reassured him,
“I’ve got you, don’t worry.”

A makeshift sarcophagus
In their front bedroom.
The lights dimmed.
The television flickered,
A cacophony of life adjacent
Within touching distance
Unsuspecting horizons moved gently
The shortest day passed with formality.
Children waited impatiently

He’d be dead within days.
He was a good man.
I was neither.

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