death poems

When I finally leave, and I will eventually,
I’ll do something theatrical, stand there mid-
room saying my say, with gestures worthy
of the scene. I imagine a little Lear perhaps
or, more fitting, Willy Loman, my overdone
version of heroic. I’ll stand full height, with
shoulders back, at attention, and demanding
attention from my audience, the groundlings
I have left, those jaded theater goers who for
some reason stayed around for the last act of
my little play. I have been practicing my lines
for years, watched so many friends say theirs
as they departed stage left, tried to catch each
phrase and move they made, set my phrasing
accordingly, would practice for hours before
any available mirror. I’m saying, I am finally
ready to leave, deliver my ultimate oration,
my closing soliloquy, deliver it and then turn
in a slightly stagy way and be gone, finally,
and you thought I’d never leave.