8:12

behind the times

I will die in a fort of strapture, fit with laughing
I will die without punctuations or monetary curbs, cures, curves

I will die in a town named after
I will die a thousand times a sparrow, but once a corvus

I will die with my love bound up in books
I will die with my hand bloated and trapped in ink

I will die in the eyes of my wife’s fast blinking
I will die in the throat of my schoolchild as she learns her alphabets

I will die in the band sounds stilled beneath the metal bleachers
I will die in the keys of the janitor and the pressed pedals of the upright piano

I will die on a midwinter’s day and on the afterpolice shot of summer—walking on the moon
I will curl up into smoke and Dramamine and the goats will eat their cans and chew the grass
sprigs from my sockets

I will die with my family’s crest—a series of spaces between the waves
I will die in the cornucopia of a faltering national identity

I will die tomorrow and tomorrow and the rest of them will come to take you to bed
I will die a manor and campfire

I will die on the off-ramp of an odd numbered highway with salt still frosting the lines
I will die with my wife’s fear of dropping out of the sky and my own fear of finding another me inside these dreams I’ve signed

I will die of long-in-the-tooth, of rickety-rails, or choose-your-own-adventure laid out for adults
I will die sweating inside a handshake, the palm and fishlike

I will die in every curtain of lakewater interpreted as a walkable ice-way