Still Life

Still Life

The condiments of his ill health lined up on Report:

His bedside table plotted out his
present position:

a box of tissues mockingly offered
Man-size strength.
A bottle of surgical spirits
for rubbing into his bony
semi luminous flesh
reeked the smell
of degeneration.

Inhalers: two,
one red, one blue.

Prescribed four times a day unless
he was turned every two hours,

In which case
coughing so fierce
that he was incontinent
and the punishment
continued as he was
man-handled
out of the piss wet bed
into clean, sanitized sheets

and then urged to inhale &;#8230;
His life's breath
whimpering
away.