March 8

A blizzard blasts my eyelids.
I stumble through mountainous snowdrifts
and almost leave a print of my face in one.
"Suck it up," one man tells me.
"This is summer in Sudbury."
I'm now warm in the pub
where they hand out
mint-flavoured lifesavers with meals.
Where the days counting to St. Patrick's Day
change from nine to eight two hours early.
Where a lousy pub band plays music.


I know I am sick, morbid and selfish, when I tell you,
dying tonight wouldn't be so bad
if I had to die young.
I'm in the 27s, though I ain't so famous.
Deathclock once said I'd die on a March 8.
There's a blizzard in the window.
I'm alone on the other side.
The man beside me was here for two pints and leaving.
He's on his fifth and close to gone.
Dying on a Saturday when the world is dead.
I love life and seek to find what tomorrow feeds me.
Yet the rush of death is a once in a lifetime experience.