Death Poems II
II.
DEATH IS COMPRISED OF DEEP BLUE TORTURES
and filled with dark chocolate cake.
Birth has gone with the losses
of endless imagination.
A round brown leaf whirls at the tip
of a spider thread.
I
n
l
a
t
e
Winter
I will study
the whiteness of plum blossoms
and look for knots in an old trunk
at the edge of the forest fire
near some deer bones.
From Mule Kick Blues and Last Poems by Michael McClure. Copyright © 2021 by the Michael T. McClure Estate. Reprinted with permission of City Lights Books. citylights.com.