I’m going to move your chair closer
to where the trapdoor is, so I’ll be alert
to all the implications of your fall.
Of course I expect the usual resistance,
though as a character in my story
you’ll not be given the strength to reach
the utility knife on the worktable,
and I, not you, will have the last word.
I want to breathe the musty basement air
(and witness your last breath) for the sake
of verisimilitude. I’ll be in the act of inventing
the entire scene. As I begin to type,
you will not be happy at the way
I give you the desperate consciousness
of a dying man. But certain readers demand it.
Really, there’s nothing you can do,
though it’s important that you try.
In such a situation everyone tries.
A wooden coffin awaits you,
and the cemetery isn’t far away.
I can only apologize that those pallbearers,
once your friends, will not be very sad
after it’s all over. Your death will confirm
you were a minor character all along.
I wish you could understand that yours
was simply a life, childless, malleable,
that my imagination found itself needing.
Nothing personal was intended, or occurred.