LAST THOUGHTS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Alan Catlin
Heat rose in layers
through the low,
hanging palm trees.
Black nightbirds
skimmed the skin off
his dreaming and left
a raw pain like fever
inside his black,
festering eyes.
Breathing was slow
and mechanical, a steam
engine at full throttle
with nothing left
inside to generate heat.
What he heard outside
was a pegleg tapping
on a boardwalk
of his imagination
disappearing precipitously
into a vacant, absorbing sea.
Every other step resounds
in his head like a
nightmare of a Treasure
Island for which he has
lost the map.
