Thinking about death

Just Before
A last breath, then darkness
pools beneath your eyes;
can it be found, the moment just
before, when you were still alive?

In dreams I turn back weeks
like sheets, and calculate the odds
if this or this had shifted just a shade,
would things have gone on as before,

yet know at once that I can never
trace this river to its mouth, no north
or south will find me in this place,
until, bone weary, in my time,

the gates of breath swing heavy
on their hinges, and, destination
now in sight, I finally arrive.