Have You Been Wanting To Go To Sleep and Not Wake Up
I answered no, having long contended
that sleep offers only the drawbacks
of death (inability to partake in nature and drugs)
without the big benefit (no longer
being alive). Sleeping forever:
no thanks. I have, though, been wanting to take up
acting, in order to get myself a death scene.
The key is the constructed landscape, going out
in front of a plywood backdrop: barbershop
or bed of rocks—it doesn’t
matter. What matters is securing
a different world to die in, as I refuse
to die in this one. I won’t give it
the satisfaction. Not that it is ever satisfied.
Suffrutescent Scrub
as a child I was taken
with a story I’d read in some
volume about a traveler who’d died
in Death Valley not of heat
but of cold—determined to set
the world record for longest
exposure, he’d packed his body
in ice enough to do him in
I think of him any time
your name is mentioned or God
forbid we encounter each
other—I think of his terminal
overcompensation as I insist what
a gift you are, the gentlest gem
of this city, it’s always so good
to see you it’s so so good
