Dying Outside

A poem for Hal Finney:

He will die outside, he says.
Flawed flesh betrayed him,
it has divorced him---
for the brain was left him,
but not the silverware
nor the limbs nor the car.

So: he will take up
a brazen hussy,
tomorrow's Eve,
a breather-for-him,
a pisser-for-him.

He will be letters,
delivered slowly;
deliberation
his future watch-word.

He would not leave until he left this world.

I try not to see his mobile flesh,
how it will sag into eternal rest,
but what he will see:

endless plans for a
mind forever voyaging
on strange seas of thought