last rites

I talk to my boy
jake the snake, the cigarette
smoking,
drunk driving
crazy man.
he's done hard time,
soft time.
he's been homeless.
he's begged on the street,
been a vagabond,
a thief.
he's lived as a hobo,
road the rails,
slept in shelters,
in laundry rooms,
beneath stairs.
and now he sits in
a hospital, chemo,
radiation running
through his lungs,
his veins, his life
such as it is
slipping from his hands.
he's a cowboy,
a pirate, a renegade.
he's lived his own
life, did it all wrong
from the jump,
but he did it his way.