Who, You?

Death? Death Who? I don't know any Death.
I lied, of course. I saw him just last week
At dinner. He had come with Wendy's dad,
Who shivered over parsnips. He looked bad
And rattled like a toolbox with each breath.
Death drank a pinot grigiot, showed his sleek

Company manners. Yesterday I saw
Him outside Tiffany, blue box in hand.
An hourglass, he said, with diamond sand,
A bijou for a buddy in the law.

The phone rang. Death Who? I said. No death here.
I hung up, made the lords of order loud.
They shot at random, laying down the crowd.
No death. No suavity. A flitch of fear.

Epitaph

This appeared in Pegasus.


Beneath the mist, beneath the dirt,
Under it all, she does not hurt.
She lies in unacknowledged state.
This is supposed to compensate
For all the pain. She never cries,
We say. At last she will not rise.
Thank God we know enough to be
Deprived of possibility.