Or

OR


he turned on the gas jet
and found that he was dead.
Or was the stove just out of gas?
He flicked a switch
and no light came on,
opened the door and no breeze blew in.
For a final test
he went out and walked in the rain
and didn’t get wet.
This must be death
but why does it have no feelings?
Why is death just a repertory of incapacities?
And why is the rain
as beautiful as ever
everything silvery and close and full of promise
and why was there this happiness inside him
all around him walking in the rain,
and nobody spoke to him and everybody smiled,
not that there were so many of them,
no, he was mostly alone
on a mostly empty street.
By now he had forgotten
where his house was
and then a little later
what a house is in the first place,
strange bulky shapes along the silver road.
Evidently the dead have no need of houses
he thought, or it thought for him, he thought
I think the rain is thinking for me now.


Robert Kelly

Posted over on Charlotte Mandell

from MAY DAY : Poems 2003-2005