to the last coffee draining the last man

what else is there to hate
the fried egg, in the pan
slips out of hand, the grandfather
rises
terrible
and human, an eye lost to
cancer, "i shouldn't
have let them take it" as
if we
were God and his denial
mattered-
where is the cocktail hour man
that skilfully
removed each
element of
death from our physical heads
sweet dreams that I have
curled at the end of my finger nails
while
the bloom keeps growing steady
and under the shadows of 5 oclock
on some clock- a drop
in the mortality
rate on this friday afternoon-- coos gentle
on the leisure of
this pale gloom
the green hands of this woman
hop up to scribble
hopeful warnings
about fresh
lenders, of glow and comfort glove;
about letting the unbearable
in, this north country is measured
tough under screw and nail
the wind curls the docks
like soft eye lashes
batting wire minnow traps
to balls of twine
where decoys rest in a duffel
and
rot none in the frozen
gun of this place bird shot
clearing every last heart beat from
the blue of crackling
Canadian sky spheres mouthing prayers
preparing our passage as we go down
to die.