Five months dead and am nearly at peace now.
Bones are still reliable, if one can use such word,
But flesh and blood have already run dry.
What finally killed me was so commonplace
That made me both ashamed and – sort of – elated,
The latter for it bore out my having belonged to mankind.
I – so to speak – gird my loins but what once was me
(or mine at least) is now the creature of things that not knowing my name
Creep into me and strip-search me, as though
I gut-pocketed the answer to their burning question.
They bone up on me. I am being acquired.
Every leg of theirs hastens to facilitate them.
Through the head they go, through the lungs, into
The heart without the heartbeat –
For now they are the heartbeat of the soil.
I am being consumed. New beings are being reared.
All my life a wanderer, I’ve become a home now.
Beings settle down; their eggs
Develop into maggots. Maggots are eaten
By predatory beetles. Within the dry domain
Of my dead-and-alive decomposition
Life thrives. This life will make
Off with all of me.