Three Poems On Death and a Fourth

I hear the news

okay, so someone died;

i go for a walk. the summer

grass is golden, my skin is

golden, the little dust of lake flies,

golden. a note left scrawled

on a stone garden wall

by white geraniums: 

trees for free, take them,

a symbol of reincarnation

or so i think in the hazy sun.

okay, so someone died.

so what, I still have to

practice the saxophone.

so what of his dancing,

so what of his dreams,

so what of his mother.

okay, so someone died;

so where is he? i would like

to talk to him about this.

he’s still in the group chat

so let us ask him about it. 

i’m tired of this plotline,

can’t you take it back?

okay, so someone died;

in the neighbor’s backyard, 

i hear children screaming

laughing beneath sprinklers

which in the fading light

are golden. i can’t write

the right words to fill a person.

okay, so someone died,

but he’s far away, in ontario,

by the lakes, under the trees,

and so it hasn’t happened yet,

and i will never see him again,

and so it never will.

i will never see him again

oh christ i will never 

Conversation with My Mother

Well, of course I was thinking

About the boy who died,

And the boy who died,

And his brother who didn’t.

Of course I was.

You had just read that Colson

Whitehead book and you said,

“Isn’t it horrible to think that

Some people are born and

From the moment they stand

Up, their whole lives are suffering,

And then—

To die so young?”

And I knew it wasn’t what you meant

But of course I thought of him.

The boy with the gun. Of course I did.

And I thought about the high school

Dance, just weeks after it happened,

How I saw the brother and how he was smiling,

Empty-eyed, and how I smiled back, because I was

Kind, and how then he grabbed my hands and how

He wouldn’t let go and how

He pulled me across the floor and how

He wouldn’t let go and how

He wouldn’t let go

And how his eyes seemed so empty and how

I tried to pull away and how he fell to the

Ground, laughing, empty-eyed, and I was

So ashamed, because I never meant

To hurt anyone, because I did care,

Because I did love them all, all of them.

But he wouldn't let go and I was so afraid,

So afraid, and I didn’t say no

Because his brother was dead and I

Wanted to be kind. Meant to be kind.

How I went home and I was so angry,

So angry. At him, because he was a man

And he grabbed me

And wouldn’t let go.

Because I smiled at him.

At myself, because I didn’t say no, because

I was ashamed to be seen with him because

They

Called him strange. Still. After all that happened,

Still.

But I smiled at him because his brother died

And this was meant to be a kindness but

He wouldn’t let go.

And I thought about how

When we were in second grade,

Cruel with soft cheeks and twisted curls,

They

Used to say that those twins were born

Unbalanced, that one took from the other.

That one had been born not thinking enough

And one had been born thinking too, too much.

And I thought about how the girls

Were afraid of the boy who died,

How they said he was planning to kill them all

And how he had a list. How they looked away

In the hallways. How they avoided those boys

with wide arcs, because they were called different,

because they were called strange. Born unbalanced.

And it made me so angry, so angry, because they

Were so vicious, so cruel, but I didn’t say no,

I should've said no.

And I blamed them

For the boy who died, and the boy who died,

And his brother who didn’t. But after the dance,

I avoided him in the hallways and I wouldn’t meet

His gaze, because I was so afraid of him, so afraid.

And I thought about

The boy with the truck

Who asked me on a date,

How polite he was, how

Friendly, how easily he

Changed the subject when I said no,

And what I wanted to say was,

It doesn’t mean I don’t love you,

Just not like that, just not like that.

How I laughed when he spoke like

An eighty-year-old man or

A self-help book,

How he narrated his life

With rolling, thudding words,

Until he talked to me about grief,

About those he’d lost,

About the holes in his life,

With those words,

As if he were a poet,

And it wasn’t until after that

I remembered he’d been friends

With the boy who died, and the

Boy who died, and his brother who lived.

And I remember how I came home

That night, the night after the dance, and I

Cried when I told you what happened,

because I was so afraid, so afraid,

And so angry, so angry, because I was

Young and had never experienced such

Things and my hands were small and he

Wouldn’t let go but

I never said no.

And you said,

“He must have been drunk,”

And I said,

“Oh.”

And you said,

“What was his name?”

And I told you and you said,

“That’s the brother, isn’t it?”

And I said,

“Yes.

That’s the brother.”

 I speak to the mare whose foal is dead

How are you doing? I ask.

How do you bear the unbearable weight of grief?

She tosses her mane and stomps her hooves and says, I am tired of talking about it.

Don’t you get tired of always asking the same old questions?

Death, be not proud 

by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; 

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow 

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. 

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, 

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, 

And soonest our best men with thee do go, 

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. 

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, 

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, 

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well 

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? 

One short sleep past, we wake eternally 

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.