This morning
it feels like my heart is knocking against my ribcage.

I mean that
in all sincerity. 
Heart, in this case,
is muscle and not metaphor. 
Ribcage is
a common descriptive term for the arrangement
of the ribs. 
Morning is when this is happening and also carries
no figurative weight.
I mean to say just what I say:

it’s morning, and it feels like
my heart is knocking against my ribcage.

Note that I did not say, “trying to break free”
from my ribcage.  That would be stupid to say
as the heart has no will of its own. 
It doesn’t know freedom and it’s not
going to leap from my body
leaving splinters of bone
and a huge hole behind it. 
That would invite metaphor again
and I’m trying to avoid it,
my breathing’s too shallow
to use so much oxygen on creative thought
right now.

Did I mention my breathing was shallow?
Don’t assume I meant something else. There’s
nothing hidden in that; my breathing
is shallow, meaning I’m taking
smaller breaths than usual, higher in my chest,
more quickly. I could add that they do not
expand the ribcage as much as normal breaths.
You should get the picture,
though I’m not trying to paint one:
just the facts here.  I’m wincing
with the effort of staying in the moment
with the pain in my shoulder. 

Oh, the pain?  Yes, I’m in pain.
And for a full description of that,
I’m going to have to dip a bit into
comparison.  Forgive me.  It’s what
we all do; I don’t know how else to say it.
It’s like something’s cutting me at intervals.
Sharp pain.  We call it that because it explains it
to another.  We’ve all felt it.  Right now,
it feels like my left shoulder’s being slashed
from clavicle to pit, and then a rod’s inserted in the wound
and shoved down my left arm from the inside.
That’s accurate as a description even if it’s not a fact.
No wonder my breathing’s so shallow.
No wonder my heart feels like it’s knocking on my ribcage.

I would feel safe
in having you assume that these are the signs
of a heart attack, which itself is a metaphor
used to describe a myocardial infarction
or some other cardiac event.  Heart attack
is a bad description, as if the heart
were capable of hostilities.  It’s not attacking me.
It’s doing what it is supposed to do in response
to my not taking care of it properly.  Fatty foods,
no exercise, pack a day habit.
 No metaphors there, just facts, though
I suck at self care
contains a metaphor that I think works,
even if the sentence makes no objective sense:
self care is no nipple, after all.

This morning, then,
let’s just say that it feels like my heart
is knocking against my ribcage.
Let’s say, further, that my dumb heart
and my ribcage
and my arm are in some kind of distress and as a result
I am too. 

I don’t know what I means as distinct
from the awareness of the body.
If I did, would I be writing this
instead of calling the ambulance?
But if the heart dies I’m sure I’ll find out.
No metaphor in that, either.  I suspect
there will be a moment when I will understand
the meaning of I if keep writing instead of calling.
I won’t come back to tell you about it, though.
You will have to draw conclusions
from the poem and the pain and the heart
and the dying.  You will say
the stupid bastard died writing a poem while his heart was failing
and you’ll be correct.
I’m sure someone will make it into a metaphor,
though in fact it isn’t.

“This is a beautiful place,”
said Wally, our resident alien,
the poet of Wild West and train robberies,
who left his son’s wake early
to come to our poetry reading.

We sat there speechless
for more than a beat,
then began scrambling in our bags
for whatever poems we had
that might bridge such strangeness.

Wally never missed a night.
Tonight he was late and glassy eyed
and sat there, saying,
“I just want to listen.”
 And again,

“This is a beautiful place.”
An art gallery in a community building.
A circle of steel chairs.
Daffodils on the walls.
Stained carpet underfoot.

We called the reading “Speak”
and we did, twice a month, no standing,
no stage, a round robin of poets
going three rounds on a theme
all of us had suddenly forgotten.

“This is a beautiful place.”  We learned
that his son had hanged himself.
Wally was glassy eyed and listening.
We forgot the theme.  We scrambled.
We sat there.  We tried to bridge the strangeness.

It’s a shame when anyone dies.  — from an Internet forum post

You say it’s a shame when anyone dies
though it’s one of the few things
you can count on everyone doing
so I guess you’re saying
we’re all supposed to be ashamed
of people being human
and exiting this state of grace
called living

Some get to it faster than others
through no effort of their own
I suppose that’s a shame
in some way
though I suspect we’re upset
at them leaving us behind
to await our own ends

I never saw it this way
Think it’s a shame to cause another’s death
Think that some shame adheres to the killer
Even if it’s justified in self-defense
It’s still a shame that it had to happen
that someone will have to walk around knowing
they were responsible for it
even if there was no alternative

But when an old person dies of the body’s decay
that’s just what is supposed to happen
A young person dies from an illness or accident
and that’s supposed to happen
An infant dies in sleep without warning
and that’s supposed to happen
so I don’t know what the shame is
in dying at the appointed time
We don’t get to pick those appointed times
We don’t get to choose who lives or dies
just to keep ourselves whole and happy
It’s not an option not to die
no matter how good or worthy you are
of the honor of living
no matter how much good you did
or what you created for the astonishment of the living
you will go as we all will go

And when it comes to the suicides
who long to bring the inevitable forward
speed things up with the sudden jolt of the rope
or the trigger
or do it more gradually with a smoke or a drink
a needle or a truckload of burgers
you can’t say much to dissuade them at the end
They’re hurtling and hurting
telling themselves minute by minute
“let’s just get this over with”
and there may be pain left behind them
but no shame in losing that urge to self-preserve
so anger at their choices isn’t worthy
of those who choose to hold themselves here
as long as possible

What is a shame
but a regret intensified
to the point of obsession
If there’s one regret worth obsessing over
it’s not that death itself occurs
It’s that death can’t be traded
among the living according to their desire for it

I know people who are closing in on that end
who fight to hang in for the last nailhold of life
and others who would go now if something didn’t hold them back
by their own nails
and it’s not a love of life that keeps them here
but a fear that they’ll be shamed in the early departure
that they’ll crush the left behind with sadness

If I had my way
we could take the shame from their brows
give their extraneous life to the ones
who long for more
It’s a shame we can’t do that
call out

“living, here’s one worthy of you
keep this one
and let this other one go
without any sense of regret”

the balance would be thus maintained

The only shame I see in this
is that you could call me
tomorrow
and I’ll likely still be here
when the phone will ring a long time
at the home of someone
who desperately wanted to answer

Dear young person:

Well, you’re dead,
and I’m sorry
we never got a chance to talk,
though you probably
wouldn’t have cared
to speak to me, and I’m sorry
about that too. 

People seem to love you,
still,
even though you’re dead. 
Did they tell you that when you were alive?
They all say they didn’t,
or they didn’t say it enough.
I’m sorry for that,
sorrier still
if you didn’t hear it enough
and can’t hear it now. 
I suspect you can’t.

But if I think you can’t hear it,
I ask myself,
why then am I writing to you? 
Perhaps
because you’re easier to speak to
now that you’re dead. 

Perhaps because
I’ve been there:
alone and listening in vain
for the voices that say,
“I love you…” in life,

certain I will miss them in death.

I wish there were more to say
but I can’t be sure you can hear me
and I’m tired of listening to myself
attempting to convince myself

that this has a point:

so enough for now.

But if you can hear me,
if you’re hearing
“I love you” as much as you need
now that you’re

there
where we don’t know what is needed,

I wish you’d let me know.