THREE POEMS ABOUT SACRIFICE
 

The Dead

The dead are so indelicate.
That is, there is nothing delicate about a dead body.
There is nothing personal about a dead body.
A dead body is stupid; all that is personal is wasted and gone.

There is no good way to revere the dead.
The dead deserve no reverence, for the dead are not.
The body is a poor device to remember the lost, the living.
No incense or monument is stately enough and suitable.
We should eat our dead, who neither are, nor are ours.

Then what is left
could at least become something that warms or sustains;
this dull object against which we stub our selves
might serve.  Although who could swallow?  When the fact of death
grinds against our unwilling tongues.

There are no dead.  No legions, no armies.
No memories even.

 

Eating the Dead

The dead know nothing.
They forget everything.
We come to them with
the memory of everything in
our mouths, like berries, like
lemon rind, sharp and fragrant as
fresh thyme. But they know nothing.
They forget everything.
Even the ones who died by violence,
even the ones who knew
they were dying. They don’t
wander among us, we move
among them, tired and
seeking. They have
forgotten how to speak, and
do not hear when we tell
them we remember.

Poem for the Dead

There are
things I wanted
to say to the dead;
important things, like
don’t die, I love you, don’t die.
I may be dead
when you read this,
but I still won’t be able
to talk to the dead.  The
dead are always a waste
of our time.