Conundrum
If I held your hand as you died
I hadn’t protected you
And if I protected you / I failed /
Leaving your hand and mine
hanging in the stale air
of dying; what did you realize
in those blood-drowned
moments / between / living
and having-lived / or having
had / ownership of air / spent years /
for we are all consumers
of what eats us alive
perched between body
and parasite, we in our present,
it in a future defined as self-
loss/ if body can be lost / not
waylaid like keys or a toothbrush
left on a yellow sink in a black
room, beam of light laughing
at our wanting to own it /
I write “your killer” as if / she
belonged to you / and you let go /
shedding onion skins of light
arriving at a perfect sphere
shed of so many imperfections
If I had held your actual hand,
chanting actual mantras, would
that have allowed us to get up
walk out of that room alive /
or are you because we watched
you radiate a tunnel of light
seeping through our minds’ skin
down to what we call “soul”
if we’re not ashamed.
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