Post Mortem-Uncle Bob

Two men who cried, "Uncle!"

Matthew F. Blowers III

Art~Whimsically Yours Studio

©--1997 –based on a true event.

An empty pack of cigarettes

squats on his nightstand,

a reminder of the vice that

gripped his frail lungs 

and tainted his last exhale.

Oh, there were warning signs,

morning hacks without a fare

that carried him to black spots

whirling in a frenzy before his eyes,

pain that permeated his shoulder

till he could barely raise a once, strong arm.

An arm that used to wrench

train engines back to life on the railroad.

Doctors that shook their heads

at his stubbornness to quit,

this 110 pound flesh chimney

belching smoke as soon as he left

their offices ignoring each grim prognosis.

All of this left him with an exhale

that held the only bright colors

near the sheet pulled over his head.

Scarlet exclamation points to

a shortened life sentenced.

The drizzle on the window

looks much like the tears of realization

that ran in rivulets over his suffocating face.

His lungs collapsed without warning,

the tumors having eaten holes

in the lower left and right lobes.

His fist beating on the bed stand,

to beckon my help.

His face purpled and his eyes

huge orbs pleading, as I dialed 911.

I vainly tried to blow air into his lips,

which were sucking fishlike at nothing

till you arrived with your partner.

All confidence and machinery,

inserting chest tubes to inflate each lung,

and then pumping on respirator bags.

But he was by then just a desiccated vacuum

and so you left, squeezing my shoulder

and mumbled soft condolences.

Two hours later after the mortician

had removed the remains,

I followed suit, tossing the crumpled up

cigarette wrapper, into a waste can

of surgical rubble along with the pair

of gloves you had left behind.

One will go off to a landfill, 

and the other will fill the land

leaving me one relative less 

from what has always been

so lovingly familiar all my life.

When the end came he cried "Uncle"

and so did I.............................

Minutes later I stepped outside

into the bright sunshine, 

that he would no longer bask in,

and reached into the vest pocket

of my coat, and withdrew

a pack of Newport’s, 

flicked my Bic and inhaled

the stress relief that came

from my next paper tube

stuffed with poison.

I realized even then that

I had just witnessed

my own end, but I was

addicted to that

chemical rush,

and I couldn't care less.