By Collie Mason Shaw
“What will it do, kill me?”
Said a wearied coal miner
Who caught me eyeing the tobacco smoke
Pouring from his tracheostomy.
“I don’t want to live forever, just long enough,”
As he lit another spliff
Half jaw working hard verbalizing regret
“Just three months to turn my life around, I don’t want a miracle.”
Collie Shaw graduated from the UAMS College of Medicine. She is currently an intern at Unity Health in Searcy, Arkansas and wrote this to emphasize the heartfelt emotions of end of life and goals of care.