Trouble Breathing

It began as
Difficulty swallowing
Several weeks ago;
Come to think of it, also
Some trouble breathing,
No doubt a medical condition
With a Latin name,
      In English, most physicians
      Call it “Shortness of Breath,”
But I don’t want to
Bother my doctor.

Aspiration triggers
A feeling of choking,
Struggling for air,
Sends me into panic,
As when I take pills, eat,
Even drink
      Small
Sips of water.

Always the thought:
I could die now,
      Alone.
No one would know
Until someone found my corpse.

In my struggle for breath
A second terror intrudes,
Not as memory but
      As Presence.
Maybe I am already dead,
Like half my family,
Seventy-five years ago
In the gas chambers
Of Auschwitz-Birkenau,
My pills, pellets of Zyklon B
Dropped from the ceiling
Into deceptive “showers”
Where gasping is futile.

I choke both here and there,
Now overrun by
      Then,
Dying but already dead,
Frozen in time,
Frozen in torment,

Until I awaken
From this
      Trance
In a wild coughing fit,
Heave the poison,
And, if only briefly,
Leave this prison
Of body and mind.

I breathe better now,
As if someone had rescued me
      By opening a door.