i find you
where i have never been
i can’t go there
but you draw me in
beckon me
with flailing arms
to follow you
i pick your hands
out of midair
hold them lightly
i lose you
after twelve rattling breaths
i wait forty seconds
while you are gone
i don’t know where
you return
four breaths to regain awareness
eight to reconnect
you sense someone’s here with you . . . i think
i am here
i do not know you know it’s me
only assume you do
when you look at me
in your morphine-induced state
you reach up
over and beyond me
see right through me
in transition from here to there
i cannot fathom your “there”
the transcendent reality
you are entering
your body
refusing to stay here
your face tanned and leathery
your arms mottled purplish blue
your naked body repulsed by fabric
exhibited by your compulsive need
to remove its unbearable weight
as if you are ready to fly
to your next abode
and yet you stay
is it the unresolve of the “where”
that’s keeping you here
beyond my reach
present in body
absent in spirit
or
is it the other way
your body a shell
your spirit alive
searching for existential freedom
twelve breaths . . .
again i lose you
where i found you
on your deathbed