First Snowfall

Snow comes as if like mercy.

No snowfall is so quiet

As the first one; the details

The white obscures are so fresh

In memory they might still

Be there. No corpse is so hushed

As a new one; stilled life holds

The limbs in some plausible pose,

Uncharitably vivid

Eyes may even yet gleam though

For sweet mercy's sake the mouth

Is generally slack at

Least in my experience

Gained primarily standing

Across from examining

Tables at the vet's where my

Animals- presumably

Innocent and by means of

Their innocence entitled

To euphorias in those

Very last instants - receive

Drugs as a woman given

The right to die does not, I

Note in my morning paper.

They removed her feeding tube

And she lingers, or did when

The copy was conceived of.

She suffers vomiting and

Diarrhea and spasms

Is unconscious, though, of her

Suffering, the doctors say.

I wonder about her mouth,

Will it be, as my furry

Companions' usually

Are, mercifully slack or

Do human death and human

Dignity require some last

Expression, some final cry?

Even though we are conceived

Of and die in ignorance,

Unconscious of suffering,

Uncharitable, too, there

Still lurks a reason she has

No drugs and I no answers.

No snowfall is as silent

As God and State are just now,

Perhaps for sweet mercy's sake -

For Mercy comes, but how

Unlike Mercy is, how changed, how

Newfangled on the stark, garbled boughs.