Revision: Hangman

Hangman

I remember when it was black and white,
you were living or you were dead, and the in-between
belonged to Michael Jackson music videos
and occulteers in dark alleys, when
there was no controversy; if you had a knife in your head
or the cough of consumption, we dragged in the box;
not this ridiculous business, shining lights at pupils,
insulin pumps clicking like the return of a typewriter,
an octopus sprouting from a dead man's mouth.

I remember when you'd kill a man
and he'd be dead; it was civilized that way,
but now diverted in transit, they end up
on my chopping block, in my glass coffins,
more machine than man in each of these rooms.
I make my executioner rounds every day
and the culling is always the same,
euphemized as family discussion for goals of care.

I don't want to kill them, but
they're already dead, I tell myself.
My hair falls out in clumps.

The white coats, we pat ourselves on the back since
this is the closest we've gotten to resurrection itself.
I tried rolling in a three-day boulder
but the nutritionist stopped me, said
"You can't do that, we need to give him tube feeds."

He never came back, this gentleman,
we didn't think he was Jesus anyway.
I filled out the paperwork, scheduled a time,
1600, as if death were too busy in the hospital
to come without an appointment.
Even though he aspirated at 1400,
a blooming pneumonia, an old man's friend
we continued full steam for another two hours
until morphine came waving down the caboose.