Part of a SPECIAL EDITION of several poems over the course of today in solidarity with President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine
Ina Roy-Faderman
In the Room With Death
Three men facing Death.
Only one sees
the scythe and ivory beak and the black feathered wings and the grin
he has seen so many times hovering over
bodies, so many bodies,
as if they all are his,
and in some sense they are.
Shouting won’t scare him away,
someone should tell the second man,
so look Death in the face, in case it comes at you
as a noose or a guillotine,
and hope that your wife was once right,
back when she believed in herself,
that we’ll all be reborn to learn our lessons,
maybe you’ll be a sea star,
learn that you can regrow, though never be the same,
if you’re torn apart
limb from limb from limb from limb
from limb
As for the third,
his time is up.
People who can see it count his time in months, not years,
Even wrapped and mummified in gold, Death will find him.
His hourglass is shattered and its calcaneus grinds into
the shards as it steps nearer and nearer.
Watch me failing my test of goodness,
of moral rectitude:
I hope I can watch when the scythe reaches him.
Ina Roy-Faderman’s work can be found in Pigeon Papers, The Rumpus, Trash Panda, and other journals. A first generation Bengali-American, she was born in Nebraska, lives in northern California with several mammals (some human), and drinks a lot of coffee. She teaches biomedical ethics and humanities philosophy of technology, and serves as a poetry editor for Right Hand Pointing.
Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
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