HOW TO GO

 

They ask you what you would want

in your last days. How are you

to know? I guessed blood oranges,

mostly flesh and no pith, juice

 

that would sticky my chin. I thought

a soft blanket, satiny edges like when

I was a child, something to pinch

besides the nurse when the pain

 

meds faltered. Maybe, they said,

something for the walls? A Monet?

No thanks: Death incarnate, all those falling

flowers, lilies going rotten underneath.

 

In the end, I said loved ones,

and they thought I meant them.

I didn’t have the written will to tell them

I meant Anias, Miller, Moore.

 

So here they are, stacked bedside:

mindful tangerines, wool blankets without

edges, so many down-turned mouths

asking, “What can we get you?”

 

Only the painting doesn’t speak of temporary

presence, this slow cliff walk at

poor-me-ville. The sea’s surface looks as soft

as belly skin bearing tumors.

 

They ask you what you would want

in your last days. This: moment when

the wind can’t show you the invisible path

so, toes caught in talus and scree,

you lean over...no, you jump.

 

That moment you've made a decision,

when you’re already falling

and it could not matter what comes after.

Shanna Germain is a poet by nature, a short story writer by the skin of her teeth and a novelist in training. Her work has appeared in places like Absinthe Literary Review, Best American Erotica 2007, Eclectica, Juked, Tipton Poetry Review and more. Visit her online at www.shannagermain.com.

Dance to Death, Issue VIII

©2008 Sorrowland Press and all respective artists within.