I Fear Only

What I really fear in death

I Fear Only


I do not fear the silence,
or the quiet interstellar-ness
of clammy frame yielding
flesh…
like some forgotten astronaut
kicking the round steel
of man’s prying,
and fading into pinpoints.

It is not the box,
pine or mahogany excess--
a confounding atrocity.
wrapping death in death,
to let our final farewell
as an image linger--
that they gain the heart to dig
and hug the putrid odor.

Or the odious stench,
of barges on watery graves.
piled refuse rotting
upon the long procession--
to be entombed
on distant shores.

Or the shovels digging
false solemnity
hoisting brown piles
from grey to black upon me.
as the earth, our center, folds
by G-d--no more than a Spanish maid,
addressing the cluttered bed-sheets
of a neon hotel.

I fear only the moment…
where hope meets a flat-line.
where breath goes, and not coming back
is a twilight between beauty in gain…
and the subtle beauty in loss.