A YOUNG MAN
A young man
awakens from
a short
sleep in the moments
before
dawn, to find Death
standing by
his bedside
admiring
his beloved.
She is
naked, and her body
is like a
painting in sand
from a
Southwestern desert
between two
panes of glass
for sale to
tourists, though he
remembers
it as like bread.
He is
inclined to let
Death take
her, which decision
surprises
him with its ease,
till he
sees, in the palpable dawn,
that Death
has a body of dough
fresh-risen,
the smell of yeast,
her hair a
dusting of flour.
OWLS
That woman who breeds
owls for hunting
trained to bring her trophies
carcasses
with delicate bones
was once herself
a burrowing gopher
engaged in
furtive sorties till
guile transformed her
as few have been before
she left no
sign of her former
existence but
she knew where the trails led
could see the
subterranean
patterns of deception
could set her birds
at the mouth
of each escape route
she knew what each scream meant
the pitch of surprise turned
to terror
which bone had been snapped
BEST TO GO
We all die,
which is why
she wants
to look you over now, though
she won't
say it, or anything. Her
silence is
scraped together from birds
swarming
from lawn to treetop,
or money
being measured,
or your
mistress, the one who rides
naked at
dawn, whose skin is golden.
Hers is
pale. Best to go to her.
The Tower
Journal, Spring 2013
GRAVITY GONE MAD
Gravity gone mad
a black hole of
apocalyptic proportions
an object of such
concentrated matter
its
gravitational pull
is irresistible
once inside it
nothing can escape
not
even light itself
anything too close
is sucked into
oblivion
it destroys the very
fabric
of
the universe
it distorts
space-time
to
the breaking point
BAIT AND SWITCH
The
dead keep texting me,
e-mails,
instant message:
they’ve
settled on me
to be
their spokesman.
They
won’t say why.
Perhaps
it was spam,
they
were phishing,
I got
suckered in
like
those Nigerian
bank
accounts,
like
those housewives
in
your home town
who
want to have sex with you
tonight.
They want people,
not
necessarily
their
loved ones, who mostly
they
no longer think about,
to
know the truth:
Death is a scam,
a bait and switch.
Don’t get taken in.
YOU CAN
You
can
talk
to Death but
you
can’t feed him
easy
to remember
when
he comes in white
tie
and tails
an
ambassador’s sash
sits
at the head
of the
table snaps
his
fingers for servants
demands
the best
china
the perfect
vintage
wine
2005
Lynch-Bages
sends
to the chef for
a
roast suckling
pig
with an apple
in its
mouth
harder
when you look
down
and he’s there as
a
puppy with soft eyes
© Tad Richards
///
