Death Is Forgetting
The car explodes like at the end
of a chase scene in a movie.
The cancer chews through my organs—
little, hungry worms. I imagine
weeping at my bedside, and still,
don’t understand why I should tremble.
I was like a child before my mother died
in that I didn’t understand death.
Every morning, I would crank a jack-in-the-box,
and wait for the music to stop.
This car crash death is more a fear of life,
the child alone in a dark room afraid
to go to sleep. I’ve since learned
death is for the living,
and its fear is in forgetting
and being forgotten.
For the dead, the music stops
the lid flies open, and then
we push them into the box
and snap it closed. We reach
into a pocket full of holes
for a memory or a voice,
and find our hand empty.
So we close our eyes,
imagine a car crash,
and wait for someone
to turn on the light.
The car explodes like at the end
of a chase scene in a movie.
The cancer chews through my organs—
little, hungry worms. I imagine
weeping at my bedside, and still,
don’t understand why I should tremble.
I was like a child before my mother died
in that I didn’t understand death.
Every morning, I would crank a jack-in-the-box,
and wait for the music to stop.
This car crash death is more a fear of life,
the child alone in a dark room afraid
to go to sleep. I’ve since learned
death is for the living,
and its fear is in forgetting
and being forgotten.
For the dead, the music stops
the lid flies open, and then
we push them into the box
and snap it closed. We reach
into a pocket full of holes
for a memory or a voice,
and find our hand empty.
So we close our eyes,
imagine a car crash,
and wait for someone
to turn on the light.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson