Poems
by Richard
LeDue
The winter night seems
like a body no one loved enough
to stay with the night before the burial,
and even if we are left with a wanting
for the sort of body heat that tells lies
about how we won't die alone,
we'll still find ways to fall
out of bed with a bang
that wakes no one,
while the cold wind warns us,
only to be ignored.
Another Dreamless Night
An unwanted supermarket steak,
losing its colour like someone going grey,
isn't the sort of metaphor we want
to swallow, as falling snow
turns the parking lot into a death trap
we're all free to die in.
The cashier believing in the cash
register the same way one finds faith
in a bible they can't read
or someone else's words
that sound sure enough to make uncertainty
a little less uncertain.
It all leaves us no less hungry
than the atheist humming Christmas music,
while pondering the ethics of turkey farms
and genetically modified potatoes,
only to fall asleep
with an incomplete grocery list.
Fluttering Away
Minutes don't buzz like mosquitoes,
but are more like moths
eating through old clothes
and fluttering away when disturbed
by someone who never thought
they would have to dress a corpse
they once loved enough
to be seduced by the denial of how
we're all going to die.
A black funeral dress just another light
turned off so not to attract
the tiny wings of time.
