| "I'm afraid of death" by Kathleen Ossip I'm afraid of death
because it inflates
the definition
of what a person
is, or love, until
they become the same,
love, the beloved,
immaterial.
I'm afraid of death
because it invents
a different kind of
time, a stopped clock
that can't be reset,
only repurchased,
an antiquity.
I'm afraid of death,
the magician who
makes vanish and who
makes odd things appear
in odd places--your
name engraves itself
on a stranger's chest
in letters of char.
|
| Copyright © 2013 by Kathleen Ossip. Used with permission of the author. |
About this Poem: "In writing my new book The Do-Over, which is an exploration of death, I became aware of a subgenre of medieval English poems that begin with the first line Timor mortis conturbat me--the fear of death disturbs me. I wanted to write one, because it does. Also, I like counting syllables."
Kathleen Ossip
|
 Poetry by Ossip
The Cold War |
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