He sinks away, less himself
and more a swollen sessile mass
planted in its hospice bed,
his eyes’ whites like pond ice,
his lips unlicked and cracked,
his teeth in gluey jackets,
voice a scratchy aftermath
of what he meant to say and can’t,
each breath his chest’s next
fight with gravity — it asks
the question. The question springs
itself, up from the lumpen flesh,
the sinking country of his body,
and with all this history
in evidence, we, who lean
against the rails in reverence,
we cannot pose the question
properly. The fox who watched us
as we walked the creek-side trail
through the woods behind
the hospital just yesterday
held the question out to us
as well, before it disappeared
into the silence of the brush.
About Jed Myers
Jed Myers is a Philadelphian living in Seattle. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Nimrod International Journal, Golden Handcuffs Review, qarrtsiluni, Atlanta Review, Quiddity, The Monarch Review, Palooka, Fugue, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Rose Alley Press anthology Many Trails to the Summit, and elsewhere. He hosts the long-running open-mic cabaret NorthEndForum and sets poetry to music in the ensemble Band of Poets.
