The whiskey was gone. The gin was gone. There was half a bottle of cooking sherry under the sink, the kind with the pink label and a price tag that still had a cent sign. He considered it. Then he considered the window. Fourth floor. The alley below was a black trench full of broken glass and the silence of things that had been thrown away.
At 5:00 a.m., he sat back down at the typewriter. He pulled out the half-finished poem and crumpled it. Then he put in a fresh sheet. The paper was yellowed, soft with age, like a dead man’s skin. He rolled it into place. He stared at the blank space. The whiskey was gone
Don’t save me. I’m finally home.
He looked at the cockroach again. Then he looked at the last line he’d written. He smiled. Not because he was happy. But because the cockroach, at least, had died doing what it loved. Nothing. He considered it
Below it, the final line he’d added: