the poison dart of my personal angel of death

from Albert Goldbarth, "How I Want to Go," in Combinations of the Universe (2003)

1.
One way would be
almost without transition: water,
rising out of water,
as water, isn't aware of the moment
(well, there isn't "a" moment) it turns
to air.
          But a letter from Rich, which came today
from brambled Scottish highland, says
that the hawk can sense exactly where
the rabbit's heart is beating--is an aerothermal
system of pinpoint location--
"then it stamps its talon into the heart,
as easily as an olive is speared."
So that would be another way:
the poison dart of my personal angel
of death come down to lift me.

. . .
3.
EMO! [eey-mo]: what, one year, the "cool guys"
(jerks) in junior high kept yelling in the hallways
and covertly inking over the walls: acronymically,
Eat Me Out. It made no sense to me. First,
wasn't this command what the woman would say, not the man?
Was this supposed to be some witticism put forth
ventriloquially? And second, cunnilingus was desirable,
a pleasure--yes? Then why did this utterance
enter the world as if it were an insult? That year,
everything was confusing.
                                            For example, my Aunt Regina
was dying, making her departure
an ordeal of miscued neural paths
and failed speech, as measured in extra millimeters
per day of unstoppable, hardening cells. The cancer,
one of the doctors shrugged and said, was eating out her brain.