…it is difficult not to watch
the movie on TV at the foot of his bed.
40” color screen,
a jailhouse dolly psychodrama;
truncheons and dirty shower scenes.
I recognize one of the actresses …
Here is the interior of “The Old Poet, Dying,” by August Kleinzahler. The vigil Kleinzahler keeps beside the dying man’s bed is a modern one, too infrequently expressed in poetry, perhaps. Anne Heche makes an appearance, though Kleinzahler declines to have her named (the movie he describes can only be 1994’s “Girls in Prison.”) This, like most of Kleinzahler’s asides, may not be an aside at all.