with deep respect

J.B. says near in his last breath

that he does not think he will sing anymore

just now;

not ever

And his last song comes

just after, the last umbilical chord severed:

but I am a young man

and I want (most) to sing or to stand;

want that postpartum hands will say of me when I have reversed

placenta and kelly clamps

that him who sang!, who sang, sings

even now when singing no more he can;

that I was in him somewhere below the guts, the happy man

who in the deep ruts of his despair is no more

in the lemonade or the lemons

but rather,

in the roots of the lemon tree.