At the End (come the plow) ...

What would matter,

when     taking a life:

if    handed a   hatchet  and

told,          “This needs to be done.”

Of course,                            swiftness matters;

striking deep,         bleeding quick.

But                      past that,

one thing matters. One:

Where is your heart

when its blood drains, when

conscious          goes black? That is

our last gift                  in life:             the passing.

And if I'm       there, holding

flesh when it cools, then

I want to lower you

resting,   not     crashing.

I won't care            about                  “justice”           then,

or vengeance or    punishing    shame.

I'll care about life, when life I take—

not how you lived before—

                   how you end today.

Life is ever only a single-sighted folly;

Death, often pressed on bodies craving to be.

So, to kill kindly, I'll melt your and my distractions—

so we're see/hear/smell/touch/tasting—before I send you away.

Which raises, in my passing,                                    what would matter to me?

I dream I would call on all of my days,

and drink one last time every smile I can see,

every call to my ear, every         warm kiss        on skin,

surprise scent on breeze, and tingle over tongue.

Then I would return—to be here, to be now—

If I were the worm, and you were the plow

                                                                pressing in.

Ending a life is,     a simple    basic deed:

let out enough blood,      keep out enough air,     or

cut enough connections that a center

un-spools     its bound-up nest      of will.

And simple,     what that brings:            a dreamless rest?

A dissolving latch      

between eye

and vision,

    lung and 

           breath,

       muscle and 

                strength, 

 neuron-banks      and

                                           a 'kill.'