DEADSONG

I.

I will die in a gasping panic
with plastic in my windpipe.

II.

I will die in a rat king
of shrapnel and rubber,
piecemeal by the interstate.

(It will be my fault—
I do get moony.)

III.

I will die trying to fix
a household appliance
I do not understand.

IV.

I will die the way my father
says I will: trying to pet some
wild and cornered creature.

V.

I will die the way my mother
says I will: famous and ancient,
painless in my sleep.

VI.

I will die upon the hatchet
of a charismatic maniac.

(I am always inviting
vampires inside.)

VII.

I will die from a benzo overdose,
which I’m told is uncommon.

(Cessation is worse.)

VIII.

I will die concussed and
bloody on the half-pipe.

(I am too old to ollie but
the urge is only growing.)

IX.

I will die digesting
the silica packet
from a bag of trail mix.

(I gobble by the fistful.
I do not pay attention.)

X.

I will die in the desert,
molting like a cicada.

(I will not remember
how I got there. I will
try to drink the sand.)

XI.

I will die when the mole I’m told
to monitor goes melanoma
and the melanoma goes supernova
as it did for all the stars that made me.

(I am building a guest
room for the cancer.)

XII.

I will die early in the fracas
when the fascists snap
their tethers.

(I’m a partisan, to be sure,
but I am easily outrun.)

XIII.

I will die, uninsured,
of a curable malady.

(Debt is a splintering pillory.
A lifetime of little deaths.)

XIV.

I will die the way that men do,
barnacled with secrets,
having never apologized.

XV.

I will die the way young
soldiers and young
poets often do.

(No one has to ask.)

XVI.

I will die of shame
at a cocktail party.

(My solar plexus tells
me this is possible.)

XVII.

I will die at sea,
reefing the mainsail
to balance the tempest.

I will die when
Leviathan rises
from the wet,

a shadow on shadows,
and asks me her
unanswerable question.

This poem was originally published in Issue 20.2 of Harpur Palate.