This is an enjoyable story. As someone who tends to cut things very close, time wise, I can understand Hal.
The ending is a bit of a stretch. My late brother-in-law, (no pun intended,) owned a funeral home. If one of his workers had let a hearse run dry, my brother-in-law would have buried the employee with the "customer," and shoveled in the dirt himself.
Many stories have been written about the moment of death, and what convolutions our brains and bodies go through at instant of our demise.
My impression was that you worked very hard to create an air of ethereal mysticism, perhaps a tiny bit too hard. The actions that take place in the story seem like remote parables with obscure meanings.
"To be a rock skipped across the pond waiting silently for submergence is perhaps more frightening to me than any monster."
This metaphor is your strongest image by far. Very nice.
This is a nice, thoughtful poem, and the "poem within a poem" device is handled well. The smaller poem reminds me of the line from the Nine Inch Nails song that Johnny Cash covered so powerfully. My only other comment would not really be critical. The main poem reads a wee bit "prosy" to me, but a lot of comtemprary poetry reads that way.
If you are interested in exploring "shaped" poetry, you might take a look at Apollinaire's Calligrammes, if you haven't already.
You did a nice job.
thgtchr
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