Swinging

It’s early and I’m at the stove
eating oatmeal cooked from scratch;
steeping good tea in a great big cup
while thinking about what I know:

that I am probably going to die
from self-inflicted wounds someday,
and it’s likely the bombs that will do it
are these that I know I’ve already set.

One of these days I’ll start exercising.
Maybe I’ll be good at it.  Maybe the diet and
activity will pay off. Maybe I’ll soon be smaller,
lighter on the earth.

None of it will change a thing.
I’ll die anyway.  I’ll die because
dying’s what we do.  I might do it tomorrow,
I might make it another twenty years

before I go, but I will go.
If I go today while standing at the stove,
spoonful of mush falling from my hand
and the tea spilling as I flail and drop?

I hope I look silly down there on the floor.
Not tragic; not resigned
to ending up a punchline in a poor man’s bed.
Let them say too little too late,

chuckle a little when they picture the scene.
Let them say whatever they want
as long as they include the phrase
he went down swinging, swinging to the end.