Soon To Depart Poem by Charles Chaim Wax

When AIDS
couldn’t be fixed
all the people
suffering from it
were goners
one such soul
happened to be Frank Brown
a teacher at Spinoza high school
who was spending his last days
at Pine Grove Nursing Home
me and Tom Pray
went for a visit
Tom bringing
a couple of videos
and People magazine
this one a special
The Fifty Most Beautiful People in the World
Frank sat in a wheelchair
eyes closed
dozing
but Tom opened the magazine
and began reading,
“Ricky Rocky Paull Goldin
says of this here Yasmine Bleeth,
‘I can spend the rest of
my life looking at her face.’”
suddenly Pray laughed
as his body twisted in odd ways
the laughter consuming
his tiny musculature
finally he blurted out, “This guy is
a total featherbrain
a boob, a bubblehead,
a blathering bumblebeebrain,
the rest of his life looking at
Yasmine Bleeth! A fate
worse than death!
looks like a plastic surgeon’s
handiwork to me
but to conclude this
IN DEPTH AUTOBIOGRAPHY
says Yasmine Bleeth is 5’5”
but would rather be 5’11”.
What a dunderhead this creature is!
short people is...is...well say
we do OK for ourselves
I’m five foot even
who the hell
would wanna be anybody
but who they are? ”
Frank Brown snored
peacefully
and I was happy
for that.