At the End of Life, a Secret

Everything measured. A man twists

a tuft of your hair out for no reason

other than you are naked before him

and he is bored with nakedness. Moments

before he was weighing your gallbladder,

and then he was staring at the empty space

where your lungs were. Even dead, we still

say you are an organ donor, as if something

other than taxes outlasts death. Your feet

are regular feet. Two of them, and there is no

mark to suggest you were an expert mathematician,

nothing that suggests that a woman loved

you until you died. From the time your body

was carted before him to the time your

dead body is being sent to the coffin,

every pound is accounted for, except 21 grams.

The man is a praying man and has figured

what it means. He says this is the soul, finally,

after the breath has gone. The soul: less than

$4,000 worth of crack—21 grams—

all that moves you through this world.