The Dying

Some of us turn away and miss the death
perhaps have just stepped out for cigarettes
or a smoke in the air by the hospital wall.
Some of us take our eye off the rise
and fall of our father's or our mother's chest
the tubes, the readouts, the signs.
We look aside and the event passes us by.

If death's a private letting go, a drawing in
of the mind to some tiny point, a minute jewel
at the heart that may brighten for the second
before it finally goes out - then do we help
by holding on their hands, our fingers glue
to keep them in this world a minute or an hour
more so we don't have to cross that divide
between suffering and loss - so we don't have to
start to be bereaved.

Can we blame them, then for sneaking in
their chance, while our backs are turned.
When we go home for a bath or change of clothes
to take off the stink of grief with soap,
to sit in our own kitchens for a while to drink
our tea, open the post, rub our gritted eyes.

If they use that privacy to go - leaving us
is hard for some of them, we need them so -
and their last breath comes calmly,
they exhale and take their leave
so we don't have to see, protest
then that's the dyings' kindness.