(2001, revised 2026) (c)
I try on different deaths
like shopping for a new
coat.
It exhausts me.
I picture
cells multiplying—
cancer consuming me.
I have always feared being
consumed—
or submerged,
so I stay away from water—
even bathtubs, sinks,
I rarely picture
slit wrists or self-inflicted gunshots.
I abhor violence.
Pills seem bright, chipper—
each handful promising
no more pain.
What to do with the body?
I thought I’d donate it to
science—
then reconsidered—
too blasé.
Then—art!
Why should only forensic students
watch a body decompose,
to calculate maggot life spans
in specific temperatures?
Picture the still-life:
Alley
amid rats and weeds.
Alley in
the Puget Sound—
weighted so I don’t drift.
Alley
returning to the soil.
My hand clutching a sign—
LOVE
IS DEAD.
