The Morphine Protocol

At the end they increase the morphine for the comfort care,
The palliative protocol that manages the air,
Moving in and out of lungs that are already making,
The clinical sounds of what the nurses call the taking.

The morphine doesn’t hasten the end, the studies show,
But it reduces the suffering in the slow,
Process of the body stopping its systems one by one,
The analgesic mercy in what cannot be undone.

The morphine protocol, the comfort at the end,
The morphine protocol, what the palliative can send,
Across the threshold of the ordinary pain,
The morphine protocol, the relief of the campaign,
Of the body’s last work, made less sharp and more,
The morphine protocol at the final door.

I’ve been in the room when the protocol was running,
The specific quality of the breathing and the stunning,
Slowness of the process measured in the minutes,
Between the exhalation and the next one in it.

The nurses know the rhythm of the end, the change,
In the breathing pattern at the edge of the range,
And they come in more frequently as the pattern shifts,
The specific attention of the hospice’s gifts.

I want to die with the morphine protocol running,
When the time comes, I want the gunning,
Of the discomfort down to the manageable and the through,
Of the passage made less sharp than it would be otherwise too.

I want the people in the room to know I said this now,
While I can say it in the lucid and the how,
Of the clearly stated preference, the advance directive,
Clear on what I want and the specific objective.