Death Come Creepin'

Last night as I lay down to bed, I gradually became aware
Of some activity out in the hallway—voices, the pounding
Of frantic fists on a neighbor’s door. I prepared myself for some
Controversy brewing out in the hall, and vowed to mind
My own business, if that were the case. I then heard sirens, first
One then another, come toward our building, but stop, at our building,
This time, instead of continuing up Grand to St. Louis U. Hospital,
As they usually do. Soon paramedics were on our floor, with
Their squawking radios. I decided that I would poke my head out, to survey
The scene; maybe I could be of neighborly assistance in some way.

At the end of the hall I saw a young woman with her ball cap over
her face, and a man leaning against the wall at the end of the hall, making
a call on his cell phone. Paramedics came and went meantime, one
made what sounded like a crack, about ‘swine flu’. I heard the man on the phone
say, Dad, are you sitting down and, yea, we just got in, and she’s wrapped
in a blanket—and then start to sob. A paramedic was opening the hall window
as it hit me, the smell of death, come rushing down the hall with
the breeze. I closed my door, and found a dirty towel to put along
the bottom, to try to keep the smell out. I lay down and turned outthe light,
called my dog to bed, thinking about death out there, creepin’.