Pain

Promises of a painless death with the drugs.
Close to the end, the doctor predicts
you'll "just drift quietly away,' your coma
"an almost pleasant experience.' None of it true,
and besides, you have fought your way back,
opening partly filmed eyes wide in the grey air;
you have last business, farewells to make;
slowly, you look round at each of us.
Then, a stay in time. By turns we wander
into your room to sit with you, do this
and that, or leave you in rest, glancing back
from the doorway. Now the final coma:
your eyes will not open again to this world,
greet these shadowy familiar faces with surprise.