Choking on air
by john sweet
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in the last year
of his life
my father is less
a shadow
casting a shadow
and then twisted flesh
choking on air
in the i.c.u. bed at
two in the morning
he could be anyone
an impersonal sheet
over anonymous bones
a clever imitation of
a middle-aged man
in a coma
and the poem is not
salvation
the poem is survival
until the machines
are turned off
the poem is a shroud
until
the body is burned
after this
any words that
might have mattered
are left unspoken
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