Otherwise, I choose to die intestate

Nine times, I’ve found myself sprawled out,

etherized on the ECG table, in a room

peopled by cardiac monitors and

bespectacled cardiologists.

Nine times I’ve known the speed at which my heart beats

to exactly equate the velocity of light,

which is the same, I suppose, as the gravitational pressure

exerted on a given body in motion,

taken by the exquisite art of free-falling,

self-destructively.…

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