I talked to you last Tuesday

Not realizing it really was your last day

In fact, neither of us knew

It was about your Gabapentin 

All the back and forth so your feet could hopefully get a fixin’

I wish I could talk to you now

Because I still hear your voice and imagine the “ow”

You’d had the stress test, the surgery, the prosthesis, the deposition

In just 48 hours I’d have to give your wife an exposition

On the phone she gave me her thesis 

Together we tried to put together the pieces 

You hadn’t picked up that evening 

When she got home, your back was pointed up at the ceiling 

The Ozempic was on the night stand 

An ice cream scooper was in your right hand 

Pacemaker in the upper left chest 

She thought you were in a place of rest 

The death certificate stared at me this morning 

Had you been snoring?

The CPAP was at your back

Cause of death? Contributors to death?

I could hear the attorneys coming for me next

I reviewed your history 

It was a little bit of everything 

The rushed doctors, a lot of hands in the pot

When I realized it’d been a long time since I’d looked at your feet 

Oh. The rot.

The mortician noticed when removing your socks

In your shoes were little tiny rocks

Planted by your wife after the prosthesis failed 

All the last ditch surgeries were to no avail 

But you couldn’t feel the rocks

Or the clot that instantly blocked your left anterior descending artery 

Every cell in your body – for years – had been dialing up the armory 

Ozempic, insulin, Gabapentin

Metoprolol 

None of them were enough to save you from the fall

Even the pacemaker could have been a faker 

I thought of it all as I looked at the death certificate

I felt a bit illegitimate 

You were riddled for so long 

As I filed it away 

I heard you say 

There’s no medicine or attorneys here 

I took some extra Gabapentin just to be in the clear 

And in case you’re wondering, I didn’t feel a thing