Suicide

Of all life on this planet,
Only Man
Can see his death –
And plan it . . .

Socially unacceptable,
Financially impossible –
Yet morally defensible.

Mother was saying on the phone
One Saturday afternoon –
“I’ve fixed your room.
We can have your favorite beans and rice.
Just wait until you see the garden;
The new plantings are so nice.”

All those years spent howling
In the black box, in the office.
But no one ever hears:
Just sign here, and here, and here.
And we need that revised report
To include the budget cuts next year.

The books show me all the things
I will never live to see:
The heroes yet to greet,
That princess kiss, so sweet,
The castles left to climb.

Silent the symphonies of the mind,
My days laid out to mine
A life for deeper meaning.
But the truth bubbles up, streaming:
I was really mostly dreaming.

Never played the piano,
Never sang in choir,
Always saying I was This or That;
Drawing breath like any liar.

Never married,
Hardly tarried
Over sunsets past a certain age –

Now I know that all the rage
Is to die screeching, laughing.
But pardon me, if in my passing,
I sit and tell the truth – for
I did so love the dancing.
I did so love your silly looks
And the passages from certain books
That we read, as if romancing.