Death in a sneeze

What if your last breathe

before you die

comes in the form of a sneeze?

You know,

one of those slow builders,

a teaser kind, in the way,

an electrical thunderstorm builds,

way out on the horizon

in the late summer afternoons

in the Rockies,

and it is coming your way.

Yes, you know it’s coming

long before it gets there,

the inkling, then tickling and prickling,

long before all hell breaks loose.

Your first order of response,

you want to stop

everything happening before you,

essentially distracting you,

because, it’s coming.

You want to clear a sneeze lane

in front of you,

so that you don’t have to cover it

or muffle it or stifle.

You can just floor it, full throttle,

head tilted up and reared back.

It’s coming, it’s coming!

And you hurl from your heels,

like a cartoon character

exhausting its utterance.

Just launched a full out blast

in a hundred mile an hour gust

across the room,

there’s the plume,

and you are vanquished,

fully deflated,

and your die

in one final mortal exhale (ex-hail)!

It circulates the planet seven times

in the direction it was released.

A period of mourning is

also seven times its revival

and then you are officially dead,

blessedly departed,

and fully vacated

from any further bodily response.

Gesundheit!

Done . . . !

. . . way gone!

Wow . . .

Gone . . .