the dead don't dance

the dead don't dance
or if they do
it's not for you, child
it's not for you

the dead stay dead stay dead stay dead
no respite
they don't have sick days, or time off

but they demand of you
yapping in your ear all the time like patrick swayze in ghost;
did you know he died at 57 just like you?

here are the things your ghost asks most:
why did you let yourself get so sick?
didn't you know you had a family history?
why didn't you get the test?
were you scared?
surely you knew you should, didn't you?
you're not the ill-informed statistic to whom the word hasn't gotten out
wealthy, white, well educated, didn't your doctor tell you when you were 50?
didn't your brother (the psychiatrist)?
at 50 if you'd had a colonoscopy, maybe you'd be here today
instead of having cocktails with dead actors at cancer casualty get-togethers on the other side
are famous people famous over there too?

i mean, what were you thinking?
your mother, first
then you, a structure of cellular inevitability
and yet
no doctors until the tiredness said
in three years you'd be _____ be _____ be _____  be _____

if, i argue,
because one must always present one's case with logic,
if you must be dead (stubborn even in your repose), then fine
but why so uptight? live a little
let's have a visit or two
water down this millenial absence, won't you?

why can't you be dead for, say, five years at a time? five i could bear. or ten? it will be ten in july.
surely after ten, a winner anniversary, we can have a party!
no really
let's celebrate your deathaversary
a theme just macabre enough to be a hit in a two-horse town
could you not get time off for good behavior? be the guest of honor?

or if not, perhaps we could congratulate our father
on the ten years without you, grey before but stooping more now
looking up with rambling eyes and a spine like a dried stem

you killed him, you know
(his body he's done in on his own)
but that light
the one that makes us alive
it started off strong
maybe like me, hoping you'd return
but years of weathered hope and he's gone 

matchstick brittle

and yellow wan

so anyway, think about it for a day or two. i don't require an immediate response
though i can't imagine you've got much going on
i'll be waiting at the other end of the phone line
should you choose to come through