Post Mortem.

Post Mortem/Uncle Bob

An empty pack

of cigarettes,

squatted on

his nightstand

where he'd left them 

permanantly

a  stark reminder of

the vice that

gripped his frail lungs 

and tainted

his last exhale.

An exhale 

that left a scarlet

spot near his silent lips

on the sheet 

pulled over his head.

The rain drizzling on

his  window looks

much like the 

tears of realization

that ran in rivulets over 

his suffocating face.

His lungs collapsed

without warning,

the tumors having

eaten holes in the

lower left and

right lobes

his fist beating 

on the bedstand,

to beckon my help.

His face purpled and

his eyes huge orbs

pleading, as I

dialed 911.

I vainly tried to blow

air into his lips,

which were

sucking fishlike 

at nothing

till you arrived

with your partner.

All confidence

and machinery,

checking pulse 

and respiration rates

then pumpimg on

respirator bags.

but he was by then

a dessicated vacumn

and so you squeezed

my shoulder and

mumbled soft

condolences.

Two hours later

after the mortician

had removed

the remains,

I followed suit,

tossing the

crumpled up

cigarette pack, 

into a wastecan of

surgical rubble

along with the

pair of gloves you

had left behind.

One will go

off to a landfill, 

and the other

will fill the land

leaving me one

relative less 

from what has

always been so

lovingly familiar

all my life.

When the end came

he cried "Uncle"

and so did I.