Too Tight

His mind's claustrophobia,
a spider's webbing cocooned
him tighter than he could bear.

Useless to ask why...
something unknown in the assembly,
in his nurses arms, her song
his father's icy eyes, all his airless
relating, something just finished him.

I met a chaotic ghost
haunting Canyon Road, wheezing
on the dust, the turning
cacophony of mud, the ramadas
that nature is taking back.

Bitter open-ended eulogies
whispered out all unholy by those
old friends who had no prayer dark enough
to release him into the wild
open air of the Valle Grande.