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I collect the death masks of everyone I see, many ready with their mouths turned to the earth, eyes closed tight in hellish denial. Except for L’Inconnue de la Siene pulled from the river in utter peace, lovely as Ophelia floating in the reeds, the resuci Anne of two centuries of death and resurrected respirations. Her…
Death, I notice, often comes with a smile and a kiss, a tender tuck of blanket into legs, a pull to the shoulders making shroud complete, a tender whispered secret. “Good bye” or “Good life”, it might be saying. But so does love. 2 The light of the cancer center is…
I watched my house recede to the invisible as the water rises and the slow flat boat ferries me away. My only baggage— the wife in her angels nightgown, my chihuahua, a revolver loaded with dusty bullets— all collapsing in the flow, dissolving into rot and mold, a place not all that comfortable…
Today I’m 64, complete with 64 shades of cancer, a strike, summed together a perfect ten, long as the feet of a bowling alley, gentle and delightful as the 64 centimeters of a lady’s footstep, filled with enough sadness for 64 six word stories about grief, grateful enough for 64 poems of joy and thanks.…
I can’t walk into Walmart and not scan for shell casings, see the bruises on the fruit and think of those who fell, those now populating its aisles and borders and calculate if it’s a number worth the killing when the man in a heavy jacket with a bulge, ramrod eyes and spine level as…
I like America’s Got Talent, especially when they have dog acts. I love dog acts. I cry at dog acts. I wish dog acts would bark and chase those young kids and aspiring adults who sing opera every year and get into the semifinals off the stage; chase the pretentious dance troupes and acrobats;…
The port rests on my high right chest, a pink crater, a cleanly folded linen shroud kissed with tears wheeled from operating room to recovery by melting folds of scrub blues with iodoform scents. The fragrance of me is creased into a tucked blanket, monitors on my legs and arm caressing rhythmic, sounds dissolving…
Kiss me. Devour me. Press yourself to me until inside and forever let me know you are there. Every breath is you. Every smell is you. Everything I taste has the savor of you. I look around and everything is you. Noise settles into the house with the timber of you. The gentle cloth of…
Bury me not in a high tomb of gloom on days sacred to all your lonely heart nor scatter my ashes in the pale moon on June’s or September’s early-late start. Mix me in with all my good beastlies‘ dust, one third reserved for Elsi’s sweet embrace, two parts crushed into diamonds that not…
