White Noise

There is a shushing noise
like the sound imagined as the ocean
when putting a seashell to your ear.
It fills the mind
until thought, even movement
seems in slow motion
with only the gentle susurrus
in the background.
The somehow amusing detachment
of mind and body,
consciousness no longer seated
in the physical
holds no fright
as sensation
becomes more like a whisper
than touch, taste, smell and feeling.
“This, then, is death,” he surmises,
the thought itself enveloped
in solitude,
rippling through the white noise
like a boat slapping through riffles
on water.