Death

I’d like to say I’m acquainted with death but I’ve never, obviously, drunk the cup. The death I’ve experienced is not death, but what’s left: a tiny bird at the bottom of a cage, a rat in the crawl space, a toad run over on the street. These left their mortal coils as desiccated and flat images of themselves. A shell found on the beach. A house built by hand of stones. A name in a history book. A street named to help us remember. The name of a fifth great-grandmother, otherwise, anonymous, without a gravestone. Poets have died; this means they will write no more. Fathers and mothers have died; this means, if they were lucky, they live in their offspring. To me, death is like regret, a loss, great or insignificant, tearing at my heart, or merely glancing as it passed.