Half in Love with Easeful Death

"Discovery, is the warmth of eyes that leaves us lying in defeat....." Matt Pond

I look at Death and he looks at me. We may never make it back. We might dance or fuck or breathe his dark breath deep and be finished. If this is the last of life, if this is all there is......let's sing. I open up wide and make a sound. A brave throated ballad or hymn or round. Death always sings to me, its the least I can do for him before, like every living thing, I'm begging on my knees.

Running with my eyes closed to the rain, I laugh out loud. We may never make it back. And nothing will happen. The world will persist as if we never were. Glaciers will move and melt, whole species will proliferate and die out. I look at Death and he looks at me. I am a little in love, but he is not my kind. He possesses articulate hands, luminous eyes, laugh lines. Soon I will kiss his feet and bathe his neck with tears. Please, not yet. Something in me hopes that he is only the stuff of dreams, a specter of imagination and fear. But in my marrow I know: the privilege of life is a debt, that in the end, must be paid in full.

I am searching for Life - with my eyes closed. Running into the dark with no understanding of when I will hit the wall, walk off the cliff, stumble and fall. I look at Death and he looks at me. He is not fearsome but beautiful, radiant in his artful guise. A sweet, sweet companion in whose amnesiac embrace I live. I am a little in love, but not yet. Let's dance or fuck or breathe awhile. Please, let's just sing.