PRESTIDIGITATION

My friend the rock driller the gold merchant to Hong Kong black
markets was dying from lungs scarred with dust
I sat with him in winter when the air was clear
Not the struggling murk of summer humidity
when his lungs would quit. The ambulance so close they
would revive him pouring pure oxygen almost into him

his stories of this and that parties and elbow rubbing were
amazing the fire breathing behind the door of the grate
gasping in air whistling around the intakes
and asbestos rope seals and glass

He died the next year
I saw him between christmas and new years

He too was talking of the Now
when his good memories were of the past
his dreams were when he was prospecting

a female lady too caught up in her marilyn monroe
records

she was gone within a year

when death is here
where else is there

no edge to leap from
but wait
wait

the days moving
Loris dad jacked up on morphine
like my mother when she too was
full of cancer
So bad a plastic shunt from her side
to her burning up insides
delivered the golden doses of freedom

But you are right Joe
we are not
facing our ultimate
thing

we cannot look and see where we
will be taken down by a bus
a cough a sneeze a stroke in our sleep

this is not a battle where an enemy can
fill the scopes

this is life
raw

and full of its terrible beauty

Excellent poem

how could I quibble with that?

Well writ, succinctly put. The title adds.