Even as I die, I’m Alive

by fabian cortez

It was a month ago now,

You came to my table

Coffee cup in hand,

A vision of youth,

At least to me

As age in my

Flesh, my soul,

Had taken

Hold

-

Who would have guessed?

Certainly not I, now

My brush paints,

Rigid strokes in my

Mind as your image

Plays its stunning

Canvas slideshow

Of our encounter

Again & again

-

Your contours

Raging wildly with

My own, as desert

Dunes in mortal

Combat & impassioned

An array of decadence

Unheralded in either

Empire for sometime,

Until once again we

Conquered, how

Refreshing, how

Unexpected

-

That taste of rosebuds

Abundant with salt, as sweet

As honeydew, so dipped

As I was in Heaven, in

& Dante’s Inferno

All at once, yet, thrilled

In every moment

-

O’ elixir of life I thought

Gone, now high as

A youth in lust, in love

I can’t tell; all I know is,

As I lay here, waiting to expire

With tubes protruding all about

Every cancerous cell

Screaming its song of

Finality, morphine can

Be damned, even as I die

I’m alive

-

A feeling I’ve not known

Some forty years

These thoughts

Shall not be dulled

They are mine

As she was, at least

A while

copyright©2006 fabian cortez