zumpoems

nevermore

Missing
the dead
more than,
I suspect,
                they miss me,

I somberly reflect:
the most recent,
smell terribly
                and the long departed 
                are more like fallow soil
                than fellow souls;

I don’t want
them to stagger
and
stumble
like the living dead
or
communicate to me while
their face parts fall off;

I want to be around
them like when
they were at
their best.

And so
I go
to
memory,

that slippery, somewhat
unscrupulous,
disobedient
vagabond

that tells the same stories and strays from the truth far too often —
each torturous tangle with memory
takes
something
away
and provides nothing new —

this is no consolation for so many losses,
just needless punishment
for keeping company
with
the only companion
that cannot die
but only
de-
ter-
i-
o-
rate.

— Zumwalt (2016)