Famous Last Words - July 8 2023

 

Famous Last Words

July 8 2023



They say hearing is the last to go.

Not sight or smell

and taste went long ago,

done in

by dry mouth

and the flat metallic nullity

of powerful drugs.

So you talk,

presuming someone in there

is listening in.

But what about touch

the most intimate sense?

Even though the delicate skin

punctured and bruised, and easily sloughed

feels cold

and paper-thin.

Was that a fluttering of eyes

and slight turn of the head

at the sound of my voice?

And did the clawed hand

grasp ever so slightly

when I slid in mine?

We all bent close

and cocked our ears,

but there was nothing to hear,

just the whirrr of the IV

and the usual hospital cacophony.

No great pronouncement

or whispered confidence,

no jewel of wisdom

passed on.

The last words

weren't his.

It was me, saying something frivolous

to put us all at ease.

What I should have said

and actually did,

before the feeble grip released

the hand slipped away.

How odd

for a man of words

who loved to talk, and think deep thoughts

that the final act of life

was not philosophy

or rhetoric

or something for posterity

but elemental touch.

In a quiet room

the simplest expression of love.