Last Transmission

I imagine my last words would say something

or good night, my kitten[i] probably— possibly

to do with cats like a priest might ask me why

I haven't renounced Satan

like I'd always been in allegiance with him or

something, shove a finger in his concave chest,

shake my head and say now now good man,

this is no time for making enemies.[ii]

Help me for I can't sleep[iii] in this neverland

of yours so chilled by a designated

perhaps, in want of more light[iv] I fall away

on the ground,[v] damn you

I can't take this last great leap

in the dark[vi] without your help—

and if you won't come with me

I guess now I shall go to sleep[vii] though

don't think badly of me when you find out

there's no way for us to go, no

path across the shifting sands[viii] to say

"Goodbye, if we meet—"[ix]

but no, a hand wrenches away the word.

Too soon, I think, what really would

I say to anyone at the end of all things

might have nothing to do with cats

but everything to do with go away, I'm

all right[x] in this place and last

words don't mean anything at all

to a cat, and if you asked one

it would say my death began its walk[xi]

for nine, and for yours and mine

it is all

the same

[i] Ernest Hemingway's purported last words.

[ii] Voltaire's last words.

[iii] J. M. Barrie's last words.

[iv] From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's last words.

[v] Charles Dickens's last words.

[vi] Thomas Hobbes' last words.

[vii] From Lord Byron's last words.

[viii] From L. Frank Baum's last words.

[ix] Mark Twain's last words.

[x] H. G. Wells' last words.

[xi] From Jean Cocteau's last words.

#poetry