Let me have a decent death.
I don’t expect perfection,
how could I? Shoving off. Leaving the earth
behind for the rest of you to deal with.
(What you have to deal with.) But listen—
all I’m asking for is this
on my one last day. Just this:
Music. Touch. One or two friends.
My precious daughters. Barber’s
Adagio, Saint-Saëns’ Le cygne… Hands—
loving hands. And when the fading light winds
its way around my last thought, to hear—
from out of nowhere—her voice
calling me to come. Her voice.