The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2010

diminuendo

perhaps better that your body died.

perhaps better

that you lay flat and still upon pavement

like the shattered windshield of last night’s head-on.

perhaps better that, than this long slow slide into the gathering dark.

if your body had died then i could

wash you and lay you out upon your bed,

and sit beside you for the three days.

we always sit

beside the dead for three days

because

they might, just might,

after two days and twenty-three and one half hours, sit up again and say

“where are my shoes, and why

am i wearing this?”

they hardly ever do,

but they might.

you did, did not, die.

another one looks out

the eyes that were yours, once.

i don’t want to know him.

i’ve called for you.

you did, did not die.

you keep talking about something.

i fold my coat close around me,

hold my body taut

against this cold.

death is death, i suppose,

whether of body or mind or heart

or love or fame or illusion

and its naked fact is

scarcely to be believed,

the nowness of it

scarcely to be believed.

on the screen,

death comes with its own music,

its own lighting: the single spot,

the slow pan, the

zoom to the face,

the diminuendo.

it’s over. now. boom.

in midnight rooms, no music

except the humming of blood in our own ears,

the awful hiss of breath.

hours of waiting

as walls dissolve,

the boat pulls away from shore.

hours.

is this it? now? was that it?

we want to know these things.

you did, did not die, and i

am still upon your doorstep

not in, not out.

Diane Lee Moomey