Coma

No more transfusions.
No more shots.
This latest sleep 
could be the one
that leads into dark wilderness. 
He’s surrounded 
by flowers and voices
but he doesn’t sniff,
he doesn’t hear.

There’s still breath.
But more like 
some mathematical problem
the remains of his body
are trying to solve.
It has no interest
in keeping him alive.

The tongue is silent.
It will say no more names.
The hand is frozen.
No more signatures,
not even of the scrawled,
illegible kind.

And so we are slaves
to the end of him,
hunched over the eyes
that see nothing, 
merely blink “not yet.”