I always thought death would be like traveling
in a car, moving through the desert,
the earth a little darker than sky at the horizon,
that your life would settle like the end of a day
and you would think of everyone you ever met,
that you would be the invisible passenger,
quiet in the car, moving through the night,
forever, with the beautiful thought of home.

Strew on her roses, roses,   
  And never a spray of yew.   
In quiet she reposes:   
  Ah! would that I did too.   
  
Her mirth the world required:
  She bathed it in smiles of glee.   
But her heart was tired, tired,   
  And now they let her be.   
  
Her life was turning, turning,   
  In mazes of heat and sound.
But for peace her soul was yearning,   
  And now peace laps her round.   
  
Her cabin'd, ample Spirit,   
  It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.   
To-night it doth inherit
  The vasty hall of Death. 

I am a garden of red tulips
And late daffodils and bay-hedges,
A small sunk garden
About an oblong pool
With three grey lead Dutch tanks—
I am this garden shattered and blown
With a day-long western gale
And bursts of rapid rain.

There are dank petals in the ruffled waters,
And muddy flowers upon the path.
The grass is covered with torn leaves.

God of gardens, dear small god of gardens,
Grant me faint glow of sunlight,
A last bird hopping in the quiet haze,
Then let the night swoop swiftly,
Fold round and crush out life
For ever.

Death is a beige Mercedes sedan.

I am five and riding
In the back,

Eating small white chocolates,
My long, thin body

Along the butter-
Soft red leather seat.

What I want is to become

What I was
Before the accident.

You think
I’m a rumor.

I move from one world
To the next

Living inside a mink
Lined winter,

           God’s child-
           Like voice

           Singing quietly
           Inside me.

I cannot rest, I cannot rest 
   In strait and shiny wood, 
My woven hands upon my breast—
   The dead are all so good! 

The earth is cool across their eyes; 
    They lie there quietly. 
But I am neither old nor wise, 
    They do not welcome me. 

Where never I walked alone before
   I wander in the weeds; 
And people scream and bar the door, 
   And rattle at their beads. 

We cannot rest, we never rest
   Within a narrow bed
Who still must love the living best—
    Who hate the drowsy dead! 

and Molly McCully Brown

Under my body’s din,
             a hum that won’t quiet,
I still hear what you’ve hidden
             in all the waves of sound:
each bead of pain
             that buries its head
like a black-legged tick,
             intractable but mine
to nurse or lure with heat.
             Please, tell me
what it means that I’ve grown
             to love the steady sound
of so many kinds of caving in,
             buckling down, the way
a body gives itself away
             like a sullen bride or the runt
who couldn’t latch? I know I’m just
             a hairline crack the music
leaves behind. I love
             the music, though I can’t keep it.