Oh Yes

Yesterday I died.
It was my third and final time.

At least at last
there is no more
falling leaves
hostility.

I should have been a pair of retractable claws
clicking across the hardwood floors
of quiet living rooms.

Death fit around me
like a brand new sock.

Over-the-calf,
tube,
the way life entered:

I in
you, I in
you, I in you.

No idea what to do
with myself now.

All of the people I loved
are here except
of course the ones down
there.

Only there is no up,
no down. No here here.

I saw you standing on our maple tree
on the lowest branch
no human can reach
and you were smiling
not remembering that I was gone.

“Good times, good times.”

A fatal belief in things
coming together.

Cartoons shout Hooray
therefore I was
OK with my children watching
them in moderation.

The white breath of waiting
for the bus
against the multi-colored leaves
in late October . . .

where I would have been
today.

As a century is
something only thought of.

Yesterday I died.
My daughter climbed our tree
three years from now.