Poem: Air

Air

I got a glimpse before they put him under
and he reminded me of my father, only
twenty years younger and dying.

They used to ship them out to California
to die, those vampires, thin
as ghosts, pale as rain

no wonder they called it consumption,
eating away muscle, leaving dents
in the side of the head, like handles

for skulls, no wonder it claimed Hugo's Fantine
and Egyptian mummies, no wonder it claimed
this man, his neck swelling up

like balloons, plump with air.
We are going to pop one,
slow his rise to heaven

but looking at the other masks
even I know that we're grasping
at air, unpredictable, certain.