One by fire,

four at will

(one who’d hang,

one who’d pull

the plug on his

own ventilator,

one who’d hit

the crowded water

just beneath

the Golden Gate,

one who learned

to operate

a shotgun

bought an hour past),

one too slowly,

one too fast,

two from age

(one broken hip,

one too weak

to wake from sleep),

one who’d slip

(a cliff-side path),

one surgery’s

botched aftermath,

one who wept,

one who prayed,

one heart, alas,

ineptly made,

one who moved

a single thumb

(ALS

her conundrum:

brain intact

while body withers),

cancer of course

for all the others.