For a Non-Emergency (poem)

For a Non-Emergency

When we’ve settled in our rooms

For a non-emergency

The observation of the dumb under euthanasia

He believes he can imprint a picture of this earth

Oblivious to others he rehearsed

Mechanical men have put his thoughts aside

for fixing

A distant monitor listens

The pulse gives a chance permission

An unseen hand beats a false rhythm

That must end soon with the dark

And time retracts into its burrow

Growing shorter with each turn

After

The house becomes an artifact

A junk-closet, no more than that

The old man apologizes and seems calmer now

Promises he will

Bear away all he sees in mind

Tells his confidences to the screen that

Has learned by a means of learning

Not to shy from killing

She went home wandering inside a book

Read all afternoon

Smacking into strangers

Marked by clothes as a transgressor

Turning pockets out

Should some note be left behind

Rip the seam from pole to pole

Irrevocable still death find

Someone else if you want

For a Non-Emergency

No Stake in the Game

(2016, Stephanie Foster)