20 of 30 Elegy for Natural Death

By water, by automotive collision
asleep, and surrounded, encircled by offspring
by disease slow and steady, by virtue of the bodies failure
the clockwork ground to halting, in white rooms
enlivened by florists, by rouge and wax
by the concealed stitch in the lip
the cheap shoes, the rings removed
and shared amongst the family
by slow degree, by pact, by violence
by the blossoming of strange flesh
in the corridors of the body, by the failure of the heart
by slow and ponderous breath, by paralysis
each slow and honeyed day past savor
and the mouth drying to dust, to husk and shell
by one's own hand, by the million stratagems
of a microscopic bestiary, that devours us even
as we live, we are consumed, burning, dissolved in solution
unstitched in starlight, in the noonday sun,
in privacy and in the public square
we are discovered, cleaned like a tagged buck
stuffed with cotton and wax, or left to dry
forgotten in front of a television tube
fallen down the bottle, the plate of powder
this menagerie i have collected
my clot of ghosts are , one and all
natural as milk