The nurse who gave me the injection smiled and said
“you’ll sleep and won’t feel a thing”
“But my wonderful woman
do I want to know and feel everything
do not cheat me of my own death” I whispered
but she didn’t hear me

A momentary fear, then the light dimmed
and I was enveloped by a silken darkness,
now I was weightless
and could be everywhere at once.
Stars are not distant and cold,
tenderly they absorbed me in a mild embrace
and the Milky Way was full of fat brown cows mooing softly
as I flew passed.

When they wheeled me into the theatre
the surgeon was smoking a Havana cigar
which he left on a kidney shaped dish,
its aroma wonderful
and I inhaled deeply.
With a scalpel he cut an apple in half
nodded satisfied!
sharp enough.

Switched on a sharp eye hurting light
that had green dots dancing around bent over me,
and cut my chest open,
I was fearless standing behind him
whispering surgical jokes about things left behind in cavities.
He suddenly smiled and told the nurse
a filthy joke about a penis that could talk,
she giggled and dropped her cigarette!
I didn’t smile at all.