A glimpse

I knew it, as we all know it: mean death leans 

against the railings;

in every moment malice mills about;

we don't own these bodies, they are the pod's.

He didn't know, nor did I, which of us 

would go first. 

I guessed, discretely, when I dared to, 

it would be him. 

There were reasons, none gasp-inducing, just that 

he ate more meat, did not exert enough perhaps;

and his men seem to buckle, nor did he believe

all this would clutch him from our stream of life 

but when I glimpsed that steep path down,  

I felt soaked in ice.

Lasting only seconds but when I got a glimpse,

I saw my own headstone, too. 

I saw the end of him and me as the end 

of all the world. 

He was so real, so finished, 

so whole and endless, like the Sierra Nevada, 

like a continent, 

 and if I was wrong about him, 

I was wrong about everything.