The dead do
what they want
which is nothing—
sit there, mantled,
or made real
by photographs
in silver frames,
or less real
by our many ministrations.
Dusting. Bleach. The world
swept, ordered,
seemingly unending.
The dead, listless,
lazy, grow tired
& turn off the TV—
or like a father passed
out in an easy chair
during the evening news
what’s watched now
does the watching.
Copyright © 2025 by Kevin Young. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 20, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“‘Mantle’ is taken from my book Night Watch, forthcoming from Knopf (U.S.)/Jonathan Cape (U.K.) in fall 2025. It is from the final sequence of the book, which is rooted in Dante and, here, in an idea of paradise—whether that’s photography, TV, or ‘our many ministrations’ that both help [us] remember the dead and can create distance from them. That the dead themselves may know this is part of the mystery the poem encounters and hopes to make music from.”
—Kevin Young
Kevin Young's poetry collections include Brown (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018) and Book of Hours (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), winner of the 2015 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. He was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.