"Crito, I owe a Cock to Asclepius..."

Last words are a dying art;
one can never quite tell when
it is finished these days,

what with all those stainless gods
hissing and beeping by the bed,
three-pronged tails lashed into the wall,
a bubble gum glueing of mind to matter,
body to soul: old Socrates would not approve.

No telling how many thoughts are lost
in the circle of those circuits.
Better to say our last words now,
than lose them in machines somehow.

If you will, please say I said,
"Eric, you may have my bread,"
crossed my arms, and then was dead.


(Along the River: An Anthology of Contemporary Arkansas Poetry, 1987)