I wonder, father, what you must have felt
the instant of your accident (as it’s
called, as if the cards were simply misdealt)
while you sat watching the Olympics.
For in the minuscule lifetime it took
a million million firing neurons
to blow their fuses, the hemorrhagic shock
took everything you’d ever thought, loved, done,
illuminating the mindless lights
flaring up in swift synchronicity,
lighting your way into the new night,
transcending the last right of mortality—
so suddenly you probably felt nothing,
pain being a phenomenon of the living.