KEIRA LYNN DODD

An End of Life Issue 

 

We live as if we never heard

            the diagnosis.

 

(Erase the words, and the disease

            doesn’t exist.)

 

Never mind the symptoms that
            creep up on us,

 

Like ghosts settling into the corners
            of the living room,

            the bedroom.

 

(The way sounds echo and disappear,

            the tightened shoulders,

            the aches in the joints.)

 

All things must die—

            things, not just people.

 

A rock has its end, too:

            pulverized into dust,

            worn into sediment,

            eroded by wind and water—

It becomes something else.

 

But we aren’t allowed to become.

 

We just exist, day to day

            and week to week.

 

(Our skin flaking away

            like ashes on a pyre,

our breath crawling out
            of our lungs and back again,
            forced to make the trip.)

 

Ashamed to give up, we

            resuscitate ourselves,

            keep ourselves alive

            for family and friends,

 

More like walking corpses

            than people.

 

I wish we could let us go,

            but that’s not how it’s done here.

 

Death must be fought

            even at the expense of

            our dignity,

            our humanity.

 

In the end we lay in separate hospital beds,

            cradling separate remotes,

            suffering from the same

            terminal illness.

 

People come by to visit

            and applaud our strength,

            but I know the truth:

 

Our cowardice is reflected

            in the eyes of our children,

            dutifully waiting

            for the end to come.