L'HOPITAL

people don't like coming
    here
    because it reminds them
    of their mortal clock
seeing humanity's fragile color
fading in the faces of those
wheeled by sympathetic youth
   and vigor
   sustained by thin threads
   of chemicals

the smell of the toxic clean
the rubbing alcohol and filtered oxygen
   which covers death
   like cellophane
(distorted, and left in plain sight)
   I wonder if my end will be in a four-walled room
   veins extending
   into needles and false lungs
   every electronic pulse
   censored
or
maybe I will meet death
in the forest
   rioting for great cause
   maybe just my soul
shot through

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