YOUR DEATH

You are a dead man

writing me a letter

Your sunglasses are beside you

on the square table

on the green felt

You write carefully

sentence after sentence

to make your meaning clear

The meaning is

that you are dead

dead with hope

dead with spring

dead with the blurred hummingbird

dead with the longing

to shine again

in details of the past

And you are tied to your death

with hope

with the hope of sliding out

from under your death

and then to stand

and brandish a scar

in the palm of your hand

like an invitation to the next ordeal

You pass the night

with the source of your death

trying to praise it

trying to sell it

trying to touch it

Your death is fine with me

It has given you

the beautiful head you wanted

the face with good lines

and even though

you cannot inhabit this skull

I can and I do

and I thank you

for the deep heroism

of your useless correspondence.