A living example of practical maths,

Exacted with a blunt pen knife

In the rain filled dark.

The sickness had you awake

At two, again at four

Halving pills to divide the pain

Into the fewest waking hours,

Totting up the maths

In the margins of your moleskin,

Dividing milligrams into minutes,

Counting binary bloods spots

In twists of tissue.

Still attempting the impossible equations

Where mercy equals pain over time

And death is infinite,

As absolute and unemotional

As the cat ghosting each footstep

To the bathroom in darkness.

There they found you, sitting to piss,

Still marveling at the worlds means to amaze-

Where in watery darkness, eyes failing,

A hanging bathrobe

Transformed into a stranger at the door

And your rational world finally

Gave way to matters of the unknown.