Going Numb

The end comes, is coming
for you.
So, what do you do?
It has taken your legs and started on your arms;
your fingers, once needles,
are now as deft
as fingers held for an hour in a snow bank.

What do you want?
Do you want an apology, a god?
Do you want your son
to join you
in the living room?
You stare at the ceiling
helplessly.
Nothing.
You're too arrogant
to ask ridiculous questions
like: what’s the goddamn point?
Every fool knows, there isn’t one,
even your son knows that and he’s eight,
ten, seventeen.

About the mis-scheduled doctors appointments
you say goddamn. About a dinner you do not want
to attend, god damn it, god. About the TV recording
the wrong goddamn program again,

you smack your hand
against your thigh
like a wooden paddle;
You’re in possession of such strange instruments;
that fleshy thud and no burning.

Your lips are wood
when she gets drunk
because, oh, you, you are certainly impossible,
you know.

With how much fear and how much force
do you say to your breath in the evening,
“get your coat, it’s time to go,”
when you look around the room
and see that everyone 's waiting?