Falling

dead relatives, they dance and croon
circling me as I fly, unbelieving, down.
for a moment I think
maybe I won’t die.

they talk to me, all of them, comforting
urging me to take their hand.

wide-eyed I touch tip to
fingertip, and feel another warm person,
skin that cools from the stiff
wind coming from below.

my Grandmother looks into me,
“Hello David!” in her gravely
smokers’ voice she died of emphysema.

a person I don’t know grabs my hand and
pulls, the unmentioned sister of my
father, she never made it.

still-born
her mother smoked too much
first child, dead,
and nobody will talk about her.

my aunt’s father,
died of lung cancer from
his pipe, still puffing away
blowing smoke in my face.

finally I arrive
my destination is the ash
covered pavement on Broadway
my relatives gone, lights out, blackness
as my dead cat saunters to my ear and licks it.