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Not Averse
Five minutes after our hearts stop
we’ll feel where we are for the first time:
in the dark of dark,
hungry every second of our lives, and
blood-fed, or starved to oblivion
in five minutes.
The patterns the night frosted on car windows
will be water and unremarkable in the morning warmth;
our exquisitely ice-etched selves drowned, like ice cubes
in scotch, or scotch in a stomach.
That is it—to die, not in the customary sense
(machine clanging to a halt,
mind looks on in horror)
but in the true sense:
beating mind dying with beating body.
Five minutes after our hearts stop
everything (nothing)
is night-mute
and sea-dark.