nevermore
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)
zumpoems 