When Death Said Hello

“Was that life?”–I wanted to say to Death,
but Death had fallen down as one dead

and long remained like one dead on depar-
ture’s shore. For several days, the waves

crashed over, the lightning battered Death’s
serpentine bones. On the eighth day

the brown recluse of his suitcase washed ashore.
As if alive, trembling deeply with desperate sighs

that longed to be freed, I took Death’s scythe
and, with one fortuitous stroke, broke open

the lock. Inside, beneath layers of dust, of thorns,
lay Death’s whistle, Death’s hourglass. The first

Apple that the first worm had gnawed through
and then throughout Eden for Death to be born.

I stole a bite and with such bite Death’s whistle
screeched, his hourglass spilled broken; its grains

of time (sprouting legs) stretched into tarantulas
and, further, crawled up my skin, entered my mouth.

Like a child, I put on Death’s pants, Death’s coat,
Death’s tie and to the first couple I passed said

‘hello!’