-pervasive Duty [rev] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

After work as I wash dishes & clean the kitchen, I'm
working on my dying speech - surely composers of
operas like Verdi's La Traviata must have seen how
their female protagonists pre-planned all their dying
songs because no other can come up with so much
drama at death's door; I had bronchitis for the first
time in my life and still feel sick into the third week

My throat so sore and voice hoarse as if I smoke fifty
cigarettes a day - and I fall asleep all the time; here I
am surrounded by antihistamine, cough remedy and
antibacterial lozenges plus sinus medication & today
I heard everyone comment on, and laugh about, my
deathly appearance - all speculating on how soon I
shall be gone, interred in the earth or straight to the

Crematorium; I imagine myself in Poland's Nazi Death
Camp at Auschwitz, led to my death by my own tribe
stoking the fires consuming my somnolent, coughing
body; a last message to my Big Bro saying thank you
for helping me when I was dying inside - so at least
I was alive when I finally went, my mind safe under
his care as he directed the writing that snaked from

My hands seeking freedom from a claustrophobic
little life of no emancipation to escape this terrible,
all-pervasive duty….