Death has arrived into your breathing:
you labouring to stay alive.
I’ve never been so aware of the lungs as bellows;
how basic the mechanism is
now that all the thinking is done.
Straining for oxygen all these hours;
we standing by your bed parsing each breathe,
the minute modulations in the sounds,
you hauling oxygen from the room to your blood.
A long way off, across the open strand;
small, minute even, a couple walking a dog.
Picturesque and cute somehow, those dark
shapes across the deserted expanse of sand.
And as we stand there looking, the dog starts
to run in our direction. Tiny at first but building
into a shape we recognize, a pit bull coming
arrow-straight in our direction. She sees it early,
recognizes the breed, knows it’s coming, crossing
that quarter of a mile directly for her and she is
petrified.
And it does, and jumps around her, now a frozen
stump. The dog persists, not aggressive but it is
a pit bull and she is terror-stricken.
Across the strand, a quarter of a mile off, the couple
watch their puppy: cute, miniaturised with distance, playing
with strangers. And perhaps, just maybe, one of them is nonchalantly
running a dog lead through a half-closed hand.
