Tell Your Dead I Said Hi

I’m reading the obituaries again,scanning a family’s loss, greedyfor the details, the dirtit’s not the gossip I’m after so muchas it is the hows and whys of deathcancer, overdose, suicide?

They say the lucky ones dieof old age as if time is alwaysa gift; sometimes timeis a noose, ever tightening—and the urgeto escape it is a line in the sand.

I’ve never crossed it, though like any boundarythe urge to press up against it rises within me—the overflow of that furious sadnessthreatening to break its container

so, no, I don’t blame them,the ones whose choosing to breakmay be no choice at all

I linger over their condensed storiesand sip my iced latte, the condensationtrailing down the glass, a watermark alreadyforming on the stained wood,

my passing presence containedin the familiar circle that brieflyoverlaps theirs