Death Becomes Us

Free verse

Photo by Kevin Andre on Unsplash

I woke up late
overate
re-estimated how not

to plot, perseverate, how not
to ruminate

My pair of eyes turned azure-hued and eggshell-blue
to hide my cyclops attitude

I rose the curl of stairs like smoke

and got out, about

to remove my head, then clutch
my brooding noggin by its pewter hair.

In the car, I tossed
each of us, checked my watch, let my body

steer its headless half to church
for the noon service, John’s —

who lay betwixt the bearers of his pall
as fragments of his soul pressed
against the shards of us, each

floating free as the rarest stripe
in a zebra twilight sky, not quite six
feet below. I blinked

a turquoise tear
and put myself in his place, together

we wished
each other well, extended hands,
hoped the harvest didn’t lurk