D.B. COX

Exit

"Even death will have exits like a dark theatre" --- Charles Bukowski
 
I.
 
Too spent to calculate
the sum of scattered thoughts,
he sits bent forward,
hands folded in front of his face,
like that Sunday school painting
of Jesus in the garden,
praying for a way out.
 
He'll spend the little time left
holding to slippery half-truths,
trying to convince himself
that he did what he had to do.
 
Pushed to the edge,
he lost all balance & stumbled
into a hole so deep
there was no way to gauge the fall.
 
Suddenly, as if stunned
by his own desperation,
his body shudders & a short moan,
like the parting sound of hope,
escapes from some dark place
very near his soul.
 
Just to be moving,
he gets to his feet & walks
to the small cell window,
where he watches a thin cloud
slowly shroud the half-moon.
 
In his head,
he begins to gather
fractured images,
struggling to frame
the still distorted scene…

II.
 
…Standing just out of range
of the street lamp,
he eyes a cab as it crawls along
an otherwise deserted avenue.
 
His attention shifts
to a small, unlit house on the corner.
When he spots the beat-up blue Chevy,
that belongs to her new friend
still sitting in the driveway,
something close to a smile
plays along his face.
 
Every lousy little detail,
behind those cheap curtains,
burned, by time, into his brain:
every corner, every crack in the floor,
every angry scar on every faded wall,
every broken glass, & every broken promise.
 
Every meaningless minute spent
begging mercy for every wrong thing.
 
Feeling strangely numb,
his hand moves against
the cool metal of the .45
tucked inside his jacket pocket.
Somewhere, a lost dog howls…
 
Slowly, as if on cue,
he lets a spent cigarette
drop from his left hand,
steps from the curb,
& is taken,
like a wind-blown bird,
into the crazy night…
 
III.
 
…No last words
 
He lays flat on his back,
arms & legs strapped tight
to the contemporary cross.
 
Staring straight up
into an overhead light,
he fights hard to stay awake
as the fatal fix roars,
like an express train,
through his veins.
 
For the first time in weeks
things slow down
enough to allow
his brain to latch
onto a clear thought…
 
Still, 
no answers,
only one 
last question…
 
Jesus, 
if you're real,
& can look
through this
concrete & steel.
 
After having seen 
what you've seen,
& knowing 
what you know,
 
can you still 
stand by
that altruistic suicide?