How to Get Enough Pain Medication to Allow You to Die

The doctors will visit you
at your hospital bed because
that is what they do.

When they ask you if it hurts here,
say Yes it hurts here.

When they ask you if it hurts there,
say Yes it hurts there.

When they ask you where it hurts,
put your hands against the sides
of your head like the Edvard Munch
painting The Scream and say Here.

Move your hands down the side
of your body doing your best
imitation of Mae West primping.

Move them slowly as if you still
had a body worth seducing
and then point to your toes
sitting upright like good students
trying to impress their teacher
and say All the way down there.

Remember those pain numbers
that always confused you when
your cancer first appeared?
Now is the time to call it a ten.