I’m in Mourning for my Life²
I am the Deadest Thing Alive
Enough to have Strength to Die³
Death who Takes what man would
Keep Leaves what man would Lose⁴
Alive with the Qualifications of the Dead⁵
Life Seeps out of me – and into the Ground⁶
We are Dying, we are Dying, we are All of us
Dying – All we can do is be Willing to Die⁷
Ankles are No Match for my Body’s
Insistence of becoming Earth again⁸
This is Mortality – This is Eternity⁹
Don’t Call us Dead – call us:
Alive Someplace Better¹⁰
¹ W.S. Graham, An Entertainment for W.S. Graham
² Anton Chekhov tr. Constance Garnett, The Sea-Gull
³ Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones
⁴ William Butler Yeats, John Kinsella’s Lament for Mrs. Mary Moore
⁵ Edgar Allan Poe, Loss of Breath
⁶ Ken Chen, You May Visit the Cosmos
⁷ D.H. Lawrence, The Ship of Death
⁸ Franny Choi, Perihelion: A History of Touch
⁹ Marianne Moore, What are Years?
¹⁰ Danez Smith, Summer, Somewhere