The Company She Keeps: A Poem on Mortality, Dreams & Death

The Company She Keeps

…she is always dreaming amongst the dead,
next to dead bodies lying side by side, with their eyelids
open or closed. Those with glassy eyes wait for
manicured fingers to gently close them.
The rest are inimitably serene or putrefactive,
the stench of death about them.

Some of their souls went to hell.
Other dead folks are still hanging on for
dear life, walking around like nothing,
which is what they are.

You see them about. They’re easily recognizable
because they busy themselves gathering other folks
to join their ranks, to go to lie
side by side with her, the poor dear.

May God keep her in his glory.

Such is the company she keeps these days.

Now I’m about to join her.
It’s my turn—what in  hell?

I am dead too.

Like her.