I lay on the floor..and lit her last fag.....'cigarette'...
her man lay intoxicated....unaware of his wife's dying....and she held my hand...and died...

Katie O’Neil....

Here..
in the lost gloom
in the moulding stench
of a midnight room
here
when the sound of rattle
the terror of death’s
last throaty battle
she lay..
transfixed and gasping
in wide eyed pleading
for another fag
and he not heeding
her croaking..

sprawled
and useless across
the couch he lay
his drunkeness
the sign
of his decay
and she, with glazed eyes
loved the man
that he once was
and as if lyfe
were still young
she looked
upon the face of
her smiling beau.

but lyfe was the unkind
player
and she the pawn
of a god’s cruel whim....

She lay afraid in the ashes
of her lyfe
and I.. the lad next door
lit her last gasp
between my inhaling lips
and passing her last
smoke
she held my hand in papery grasp
and relishing her need
she coughed upon the enjoyment of it
and lying in her cot against the dying
embers of a weak flame fire
she gently eased my hand away from hers..
for she was no longer there..

Graham.......2003