THE LAST LIGHT LINGERS

"This is my body..."
he announces
to himself

"This is my blood..."
the world slipping
in and out of view.

"By Christ I should have been a priest!"
he thinks he shouts
but is quiet

"Although I never had belief!"
he informs a crow
interested only in itself

a headlight
besprinkles the street
like cut-glass confetti

he gives himself
absolution
confesses to himself

a siren
startles
the crow away

the last light
lingers
at the end of day

*

My friend had come off his motorbike and he came to...and saw his bones sticking out of his arm and his leg at an ungainly odd angle. And he thought "Hold on this is my body...how can it broken like this?" Then blood starting pooling around his head and it was like as if he was giving instruction to himself...."******* mate this is your blood!" He had thought first he was watching a movie and had to explain to himself that this was him that all this was happening to He was a former Catholic so he realised he was saying the words of the priest raising the Host so that caused him no end of amusement. Then there was the crow and the glass and siren and then he woke up in hospital. They brought in a priest because of his Irish accent and he shouted as much as his broken ribs allowed him..."Get the priest...get the priest...!" And they said "He is here my child!" And he finished his sentence "...AWAY FROM ME!" He said if he was going to die he was going to die on his own terms rather than a church he didn't believe in. "I spent all my life trying to escape my Catholic upbringing and not even death was going to put me back in that emotional cage ever again.!"