The Finat Act

That morning lied
and so has every morning since. 

The sun still shone
the wind still blew the leaves across the yeard in little eddies.
The cock still crowed three times 
and a new day began. 
That morning
lay prostrate on the ground

as if atoning for a sin.

In the room of muted stillness
he lay, seemingly asleep, before a hundred empty seats
filled with hungry air.

Like a magician, he waited, poised,

pausing before the Final Act

to build dramatic tension.

I caught a glimpse of his hand

beneath the sheet - 

some other hand, cold and red, 

small - smaller than before? - and resting by his side.

And then I saw the smirk,

in the corner of his mouth, 

hinting at some joke which had been left unsaid. 

We paused for death, 

death paused for us,
cold and elemental.
Still organic matter,
still reacting, 
still absorbing and releasing

until the final transformation, 

not a lie so much as a trick they had kept up his sleeve the whole time.

Outside,

blinking in the white, bitter winter light, 

the sound of an industrial saw cut through the quiet;
the awful busyness continuing. 

Our breath rose as camphor clouds,
rising, following, lifting, guiding

the smoke of his remains.

That morning, the light was neither here nor there;
and we were still in the everywhere of knowing
nothing.