The dead aren’t poetic. They don’t murmur
about being leaves in a storm, the last
cricket song on the last night of summer.
Leave that bullshit to the living, who cast
one scared eyeball on the shadow and claim
it is in their image. What a deep lack
of faith. As if faith was some sort of game
you could name. It’s either raw and bareback
or not at all. You can’t pull out, just pray
that this time the crude dead will not claim you
as their own. They will, sooner or later,
but not tonight. Tonight you should obey
no one, no laws, like the dead. The one true
law that you’ll learn later, but not sooner.