Deathbed can be a lonely place
Even with your family around you
Tearing one by one, while silent prayers
Levitate through little chimneys of the heart.
You feel the exasperation of knowing
The last bout of gas that passes through the air sacs
Might be the next or the one after
When your inhale sounds like sucking slush up a straw
As the windpipes wheeze in a little
Packet of oxygen, just to open the eye lids
Or to make the sides of the mouth
Form a little floatation, a smile,
And your exhale is a little moan of the upper throat
That expends a miserly supply of oxygen
Circulating through the pulmonary arteries.
Then you, the old man on the bed, will dream
Of angels descending from the heavens
To take you to a proverbial better place
Not knowing they are just pallbearers with wings, ferrying souls
To a courtroom, where your whole life
Will be replayed in slow motion
Till your soul is paroled
Hopefully to soar and not sink.
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Published by meandererworld (Dilantha Gunawardana)
Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety. Dilantha blogs at – https://meandererworld.wordpress.com/ -, where he has nearly 2000 poems.
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