Sorry, apparently the line breaks got screwed up in the first email:
This Death
I have decided I will feel this death
the way I did not feel before this death.
I slammed the phone down when my brother died
and walked out, refusing to embrace his death.
We all change lanes. The line of cars behind
the hearse is long: insects hungry for this death.
I've kissed a woman young enough to be
my daughter. Age vanished. Respect this, death!
Snow accumulates and melts away.
Rain cleanses. The sun shines. Which is death?
The curtain rises. Dancers pirouette
beneath the stage. I join them. Is this death?
I'm never more alive than when I come.
Released, I think, "You are not like this, death."
We put my grandpa in the ground and left.
"Revenge," my sister said, "replaces death."
The woman chased her lover through the park.
They vanished at the gate, escaped this death.
My words erase themselves; the page crumbles.
I ask, "Can silence be what silences death?"
And when I cannot dream because your face
haunts the night? Who can dismiss death?
Rich Newman
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