On a Dreamed Report of Death

We await those who die in wires,
tolled at midnight with little bells.

A dead face is an injected wax
or unbelieved victim of murder.

Yes, I knew him. Long ago. He is dead?
Only dead again? And only now?

A remarked absence. Emotion vacancy.
Oh, a vague perhaps, perhaps. Regret

for the loss of intelligent laughter.
But the wonder of our being is faded.

I know the color of my blood is blue,
see it through the crepe of my wrist.

I can’t imagine his now gone red,
a blue jay turned to cardinal overnight,

then to crow, scribbled with white words,
living on again in description.

Death, an appendage of memory,
a wireworm on the body of a fish

we try to grasp, releases its host
to test our flesh with constriction.

We wrench ourselves to be free of it,
and when we are, think only of our pain.

All recollection is a form of lie.
Here, in this city block of wild sand,

the mounds in the yard are my old friends;
only the man I am may tend them.

They sleep beneath the scratching of my rake,
dance into gardens only in my sleep.

I wish him long life beneath the sun.
Perhaps he thinks of me now and then.