I do not number Death among my friends
And am not by soft silences beguiled;
Speak not to me of necessary ends:
I will not to His care be reconciled.
When I have gone (as you have known me to)
I’ll not be eased (as you know I can be);
I’ll lie unquiet (as you’ve felt me do)
And rise (as you’ve pretended not to see).
I know you may desert me when I wake,
With face and features much too strange to kiss;
Hearts damp or dry are liable to break.
Attraction risks repulsion. Thus it is.
Stay then, or go, but ask not where I’ve been
When I come home from death, and stumble in.