joints locked

a breeze of frozen naphtha wafted over

tissue and bone, sliced asunder on the

canvas of the examination table, a disciple

reads the expression of the healer, mortem

transposes as an occupation, the flesh

clinkins to unliving body, pulled back from

the cyttaric force of pulsing and breathing

opens up into a vista of crimson and prussian

blue, the coat of armor of indefensibleness

shattered, artery and vein entangled,

a heart beats into the rhythm of nothingness,

frothing as if oceanic decaying seaweed were

strewn over dead wood; the odor of quiet

death assumes waves of sadness turned

into unintelligible muttering, a container of

life no more, molecules looking for a new home

looks for the promise of a new day, flitting

like particles dancing in the ether, hoping

against all hope, shimmer of heat extinguished,

the coals of oxidized prospect dying off.

the inflexibility of joints locked, frozen

into a pose of the last, eternal question,

non-answers unrevealed until the very last

gaze into the darkness, the streams of

tears that were never shed, shaking off

a full life’s labors in glaciers of a slow-moving

and enduring, fixed now. who will ask

about the hidden chapters of the history

that was never recorded, who will sense

the creeping up of emotionless bubbling.

locked safely into the treasure chest of imagination,

a heart beating to the drum of the

stalled metronome, one tock less than a tick,

the unyielding pull of darkness at the end

of the journey. the fatal blow of a life lived.