One more shot!
A scorching heat radiates
from her forehead
The last of raspy wheezes,
rusty coughs and gasps
leave the lungs, abandoned towns
lined with rows of empty drugstores.
Her grandkids watch from
behind a thick sheet of glass
through a dense fog,
asking -mommy how long will grandma
be asleep for?-

One more shot!
On Tuesday she was at work.
On Wednesday she got a slight cough.
On Thursday her heartbeat was slow.
On Friday the line hit the flat note.
On Saturday the back of her coffin
married the worms in the dirt just below.

One more shot!
Wiping the sweat off his forehead,
is it his mum or the coal; that ****** black is his skin tone?
A coughing fit, seizing his consciousness
gasping for air; as if he was dying
of laughter,
watching his daughter dance like a ballerina
across their living room into his arms.
Those weren't tears of joy,
when she was dragged away by masked security guards
from the room where her father plummeted into
The swan lake.

One more shot!
The pen quivers in his hand
as he finishes up his English exam.
Finally, all this work done,
the last of the bunch was long gone!
Until he sneezed on the paper.
His portrait wasn't lit as well as his mother hoped
when he received his post-mortem degree,
Honor roll.

One more shot!
They yell as she chugs the bottle,
jubilation ensues!
Shattering glass all over the floor.
Her foot starts bleeding,
She wails and sets for the hospital door.
The doctor takes tweezers
carefully to her sole
as from the corridor comes a loud moan;
her mother on the hospital bed
rides past her door.
The last shot she had at seeing her alive.
But she never looked up.