The Weather Can Take Your Life
by Stuart P. Radowitz

 

The weather can take your life.

Cancer can take your life.

Pancreatic cancer spreads quickly

through your body like silver veins

reaching out.

 

The weather can take your life.

Ice, snow, slippery roads

can take your life.

The moon can take your life.

 

A full moon glowing on a clear night

and a crescent moon between clouds

can take your life.

Danger can take your life.

 

Boredom can take your life.

Being alone can take your life.

Or alone in a crowd,  spinning

out of control until the only thing left

 

is not having that life.

The weather can take your life.

Heat in Florida, the tropics,

the mountains of Santa Fe,  Taos Pueblo

 

can take your life.  The chill

of North Dakota and Custer's Last Battlefield

and wildfires can take your life.

 

A bad doctor, a hospital emergency room

a hospital infection,  bleach

can take your life. Drowning,

 

gasping, reaching out, looking inward

can take your life.

The weather can take your life.

Thorns pricking your finger will kill you.

 

The heart stopping, the lungs closing

will take your life.

Running into an abandoned building

and not getting out of an abandoned building

will take your life.

Strapped to a gurney will kill you.

Therapy sessions and therapy sessions

and not going to therapy sessions

 

will take your life.

The weather will kill you.

The weather will take your life.

 

Hit by a car crossing Queens Blvd.,

smashing your car into a tree,

trees smashing into you, colliding

with your right of way

 

will take your life.

The fire dept. will take your life.

Flames and fire and heat,

crumbling buildings and alley ways

 

after a Broadway show will take your life.

A yellow school bus or silver plane

diving out of the sky will take your life.

Warm spring afternoons will take your life.

 

Seasons changing back and forth and

faster and slower will take your life.

Sleeping alone, or waking alone, running

from dreams and falling down stairs

 

will take your life.

Dreaming of sleep, and dreaming of death,

being somewhere or not being really there

will take your life.

 

Early morning will take your life.

Harsh words like "get out of here"

or "leave me alone" or "stop"

will take your life.

 

The weather will take your life.

Rough seas and fisherman's rough hands

will take your life.

 

Going to sleep or waking up and

not sleeping will take your life.

The weather will kill you.

The weather will take your life.