At the End of Life, a Secret
- At the End of Life, a Secret
Everything measured. A man twistsa tuft of your hair out for no reasonother than you are naked before himand he is bored. Moments ago he wasweighing your gallbladder, and thenhe was staring at the empty space whereyour lungs were. Even dead, we still sayyou are an organ donor, as if somethingother than taxes outlasts death. Your feetare regular feet. Two of them,and there is no mark to suggest you werean expert mathematician, that you werethe first runner-up in debate championships,1956, Tapioca, Illinois. From the time your bodywas carted before him, to the time yourdead body is being sent to the coffin,every pound is accounted for, except 22 grams.The man is a praying man & has figuredwhat it means. He says this is the soul, finally,after the breath has gone. The soul: less than4,000 dollars worth of crack—22 grams—all that moves you through this world.
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Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of the memoir A Question of Freedom (Avery, 2009), the collection of poems Shahid Reads His Own Palm (Alice James Books, 2010), and the forthcoming poetry collection Bastards of the Reagan Era (Four Way Books, 2015).
