My death means nothing to me
Who am absent to its regret
I had made and kept the appointment
To be that patient etherized upon a table
Not a simile not a symbol of anything
Just me or rather my mortal remains
Kept notionally alive by expertise
But paralyzed in body
Not the dreamy twilit vacay of sedation
But anesthesia general absolute profound
Neural processes tuned to the minimum
Far below the threshold of consciousness
Of anything
A rubbery cup held gently over mouth and nose
A voice gently intoning that I should breathe
Fully aware that breathing is among my capabilities
Who would soon be past all capability
And others would do my breathing for me
And we drift away from ordinary pain or extraordinary
Toward insensibility most thorough
Capable of pleasure in the gathering numbness
At worst a cessation of pain
If that is I am that individual told of in the civics
Rootless free inobligant decisive willing-to-power
Self-interest machine
Heartless bastard
For they all of them have reason to regret my absence
Not just the troop of beloveds
Who mercifully surround me in life
And squabble sometimes and make nice
But all of everybody absolutely categorically without exception
The loved ones know well the reasons
The material facts in flux admittedly of personality
The manifest charm uprightness vulnerabilities and recurrent falling
But reasons to regret too the deaths even of the charmless the crooked
And you can have reasons without knowing them
You can have a tumor that ripens silently for years
Until it crushes your auditory nerve
And you cry out I should have had that seen to
If only I had known
Stupid idiot
But how was I to know
Who am no stupider than the next guy really
So everybody should regret the loss of the charm &c.
Including the prime loser himself
Who might permissibly indulge in a little pre-regret
And thus general anesthesia is a salutary affair
Not lacking risks of course
Say I who rode to the hospital in an automobile
For life and death both give much to regret
But little enough to fear
Certainly for the fortunate among us
Given the privilege of drifting away
And some might find it instructive as I have
To be free for a time from the onus of personality
But be not so heartless
As to imagine death free of cost
Nor look upon death with fear and trembling
But with indignation