B

Before the Last Sigh

by Rebecca Evans

The things we do to keep alive:
Whisky, weed, write & lie.
We settle, we deny, we Play-Boy.
We work & sleep & hunt to avoid
the final gasp, life’s last sigh.

Oh! the things we do to just not die:
Plant gardens, plant futures, cover black eyes.
We pretend, we iron, we un-destroy,
             we make our beds. We stay alive.

And the things we do to skip goodbyes:
We punch, we puncture, we tongue, we bite,
we attend school, we remain employed,
we join ranks, we war, we deploy.
When our friends drop down, we seal our eyes.
             We quit prayer to stay alive.

Photo by Florian Wehde on Unsplash

Rebecca Evans

Rebecca Evans writes the difficult, the heart-full, the guidebooks for survivors. Her poems and essays have appeared in Narratively, The Rumpus, Hypertext Magazine, War, Literature & the Arts, The Limberlost Review, and more. She’s the author of Tangled by Blood and a forthcoming collection, Safe Handling (Moon Tide Press, 2024). She shares space with four Newfoundlands and her sons in a tiny town in Idaho and does her best writing beneath her stairway in a hidden cove. She can be found on https://rebeccaevanswriter.com/