The Stay of Execution -- Nathaniel Tarn

Evidence. Roses preparing to die, abandoned
by their colors, drooping around the edges
of the vase. Chrysanthemums, the slender
kind, the spider mums, battalion of
slim fingers iridescent in air. A white,
a white of snow arising now, not falling, snow
directed at the sky. Key friend shakes in his life.
His whole life keeps on shaking out of him,
trying to leave him, to go once and for all -
but he… grabs on to life and will not
let it go. "I held the medication as she died,
I should have used it then." The evidence:
the way to leave, the startled of what is.
The only absolute, standing, erecting to
the sky. All else falling away. Departure
was to have been tomorrow - (leave) corpse,
house, cat, birds at the feeding stations?
The roses dream within their birds - the birds
unborn as yet. All this within the cat.
And here, having done everything,
been busy every moment of the day, life
stays. It can do nothing now: how is it possible
to get used to this nothing? All transportation leaving,
and this lone evidence: the proof, moves never,
left behind, abandoned to its dream -
not even one last line to heat its eyes with.