There isn't a discrete moment
when you say, with certainty,
"There, that was death."

Instead, there's the dawning realization
that the next breath hasn't come,
that at some point,
somewhere in the last minute or two or three,
something that had been there for decades,
snuck past you and exited the room.

Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.