The dullest people I knew
gathered round my bed,
the ones who made me feel
stupid or ashamed when I
was living. My flustered
wife held my hand like a fish,
worried our children might
eat poorly at the neighbor lady’s.
Outside the door I heard
the nurse with massive arms
send off students who learned
nothing from me, but came
anyway for final grade changes.
And while my mother’s clergy-
man read aloud the governor’s
telegram I died. What did
I care, bobbing off in dark
blue sea, under light blue sky?
:: William Hathaway, The Gymnast of Inertia (Louisiana, 1982)
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