I picked my emotions
out of the night sky,
and dredged up my guilt
from the wine dark sea:
packed them into a suitcase
with socks,
and that old wool sweater.

I stepped off the plane
into the Miami swelter,
but for the first time
in to
a Miami
without you.

I watched the life fade out of you
like a tide slowly receding -
- inexorable, cold, without mercy.
I could sense you from afar
as your body fought a civil war
down in the depths
where it was too dark
too dark to see.
I am not sure if I want to say the bowels of hell
or just...
your bowels -
- I am not sure if there's a difference.

You waited there.
In a room filled with neon lighting
charts, beeping lights, and cords:
with nurses and strangers passing by
until life stole even you
from yourself.