A stent would be required
so that the Reaper would not know.
It is a piece of steel
which takes the place
of crumbling walls,
which only by the grace
of lipids like cholesterol
allow a trickle of the juice,
sustaining life, to pass.
One cuts the femoral,
an artery at home in legs,
the patient has been medicated
with thinning agents to prevent a stroke.
Then comes the ‘introducer’,
which is quite similar
to what a Dr. Forssmann
used back in nineteen-twenty-nine,
a wire pushed up from the leg
through to the beating heart.
Soon it will reach the coronaries,
and then, it briefly hovers
before the stricture. Puhh!
A breath is felt, not heard
from all observers
as with a gentle flick
the stent drives home.
A perfect landing, now expanded,
there always is applause,
and instantly, the region floods
with so much blood.
The river of his life.