If I were told, by some shifting in the skies,
that by evening I would die,
I’d sit awhile and watch the flow of air
in and out my lungs,
those soon-to-be-reliquaries for my life,
for climbing mountains, making love, giving birth.
Then, as though pushed from behind,
for that's how we're born and how we live our lives,
I'd walk about, to claim for a few hours more
the space in the world that's mine and mine alone,
a space that someone else will claim,
someone already waiting perhaps,
a transplant hopeful in a parallel universe.
And walking about, slicing through air
like the spectral figure I might become,
I'd understand that thing about
'arriving with nothing, and leaving with nothing',
and discard the call of everything ephemeral –
the shiny surfaces, the soft furnishings,
the painted cups and woven rugs
of years possessed by possessing.
And though thoughts of you would cry out
to be picked up and carried like keepsakes
in the boom-room of a breast-pocket,
I'd resist the urge to ring or call you to my side.
Rather, I would sit in a chair by an open window
where the sun might find me and, in my final hour,
counteract the approaching cold
with its Damoclean sword of gilded gold.