GHAZAL OF THE DEAD

Then I think we are only the spawn of the dead.

Kitten, tadpole, larva, puppy, cub or fawn of the dead.

Post-winter, spring clambers from the brown.

The quickened dandelion, a yellow-eyed espion of the dead.

“Chrysanthemum growers/you are the slaves/of

chrysanthemums,” wrote wise Buson.

Shin-deep in bindweed, yanking, cursing, I’m the sweaty pawn

of the dead.

In zombie movies, they’re so buxom, burly, tearing live meat.

Audiences thrill at the muscle, heft, and brawn of the dead.

No effete tormented vampires. No youth grown pale and

spectre-thin.

Steven S., dead of AIDS at 26, first showed me Dawn of the

Dead.

“Trim the antennae, sharp tip, jagged rostrum, legs and feet.”

“Suck the orangey brains,” reads the recipe for lime-marinated

prawn of the dead.

The deceased eat the living, the living chaw on them.

Cannibal culture—devour first or be quartered and drawn by

the dead.

That night at Steven’s was a double feature.

First lurching zombies, then shrieking Texans, the about-to-be

chain-sawn of the dead.

Demon barbers, Soylent Green, Delicatessen? Tantalus, Titus?

Let’s grok long pig. Irresistible, that spicy saucisson of the dead.

Vegans have their reasons. So do condors and crows.

Most days, I’d rather gnaw on than be gnawn by the dead.

In the historic Missoula graveyard, tombstones familiar from

streetnames—Higgins, Arthur, Brooks.

The peaceful grounds, mowers humming, like a bowling green

or lawn of the dead.

Mid-June, beautiful day for a father’s quadruple bypass.

The sky, lustrous, sleek, like a grandiloquent yawn of the dead.

Winter will wander back, leaving its scabs. Just bluff and laugh.

Lie in bed New Year’s Eve watching Shaun of the Dead.

“Christ, the original airplane”—Apollinaire. Great spirit, lusty

poet,

drink wine, eat wafer from that high avion of the dead.

And you Volk, with your deeps and slumps, your wine-dark

lees,

who will you feed when you join the hungry gone of the dead?