I KEEP

the door open
by not killing you
in the book--even
when you're ready
to die.
Everything about you
tells me to return
you to a state
of nothingness.
But, obviously,
I find that
too troubling
even for me.
I cannot stuff
and mount you
on my desk,
like the black
panther of prey
you are, nor
place you
in a convenient
sarcophagus
under my bed
embalmed by
your sexual
juices.
And I do
love you,
you see,
but your
usefulness
is done
in this
matter.
So now,
as your
death scene
approaches,
I delay
and make
all kinds
of excuses
not to show
you the door.

I'm getting it done
in inches,
I tell my brother,
Hamlet, never very good
at this kind of thing either.
Finish the goddamn thing
and get on with it; it won't
be published anyway, despite
what your agent says.
Still, a death
is a death
whether in life
or on the page,
especially when
it's love
that's dying.
You'd like a moment more
to co-mingle,
co-noodle,
co-miserate
with what you thought
it was before it became
what it was
originally.
The closer I get
the farther away
you become; I
can feel that
in my bones.
Doing this
was a way
of stopping
that and that
grows fainter, too.

Get on with it,
they tell me...
and I will.
The pain
is still
exquisite...and
there's
nothing else
to do.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015