Baby, It's Cold Down Here

[71degrees]

Rejoice you are not here, flat dead
with the rest of us in one of those
earthen plots where they chisel
your name in a granite headstone;
instead we lie, naked and useless,
day in and night out, waiting
as an asthmatic waits for breath,
as a diabetic waits for insulin,
as a paraplegic waits for legs

This is the time to lie down and be
counted, to become a statistic lost
in the columns of life’s statistics:
divorces, college drop-outs,
death by tsunami, by rope
or carbon monoxide, by Viagra
overdose, the next order in a pizzeria,
premature ejaculations, vitamin B12
in your medicine cabinet, next
to the sharp razor and mirror you look
into every morning and pray to God
for another day to live and breathe

Edit #1

Rejoice you are not here, flat dead
in one of these earthen plots
where they chisel your real eternity
onto a granite headstone;
instead we lie, naked and useless,
day in and night out, waiting
as an asthmatic waits for breath,
as a diabetic yearns for insulin,
as a paraplegic fights for legs

This is the time to lie down
to watch how a snowflake quickens
onto the tongue of your child,
to understand how everything
ends with a single breath, to see
the razor on the counter
and the mirror you look into
every morning and pray to God
for another day to live and breathe