". . .nunc et in hora mortis. Amen." -- from the Hail Mary.

Besides the ventilator tube,
There's something in my craw I can't spit out.

I know night must be coming on.
It always and inexorably does.

But what century is this?

Out of 18th century dreams of pain,
towards me comes a white doc dressed in black.
I smell his talcy powdered wig and see the glints
of candle-light reflected from his silver-buckled shoes.

Like some western movie lout,
he twirls six-shooter-wise a trochar large enough
to draw the brew from kegs
the size of railroad water tanks.

And there's something in my craw I can't spit out.

But now the doc is black though dressed in white.
His gleaming stethescope is like
a shimmering python's tail
attempting to enwrap his throat.

Is there something in his craw he can't spit out?

He grim and sternly fiddles with the dire array
of tubing and technology,
and then the beeping fades to sleep.

I wake again,
and now there is a Nilote priestess of some ancient cult
chanting softly,
dancing slowly round my bed,
her gown ablaze with comets and with meteors,
with crescent moons and stars,
and the dust motes whirl and float
in the early morning light.

Oh, there's something in my craw I can't spit out!

Across the room,
a giant clock lies about the time.
The red-handed seconds speed guiltily away,
the minutes vanish into anesthetic mist,

but the hour stays the same,
as fixed as destiny.

It is appointed.

And that's the something that we can't spit out.