Old Friend

Hello, death. I got your message. I found the gift. The possum on the roadside whose pouch I checked for babies; colder than air. Emptier, too.

Even through my glove, I felt the gentle give and stretch of her. Even through my revulsion, I felt grateful to find nothing more.

Never am I more intimate than with your pets. When I roast a chicken, I get under her skin. I rub her with butter and pack her in salt and dress her in mourning herbs.

I honor you with grease on my fingers. I proffer you a pesky fly who drifts above my reach. I feel your touch at the edge of the stairwell; in the wound that festers; when the knife slips.

But when I saw a fox with tattered fur and called for you, the man who answered said only if she bit a foolish hand, or frothed when she snarled, would he take up your mantle.

Hello, death, you rascal. I know you feed me, in butcher shops and bad dreams.

I know you met the mangey fox in winter, and she licked the bones of your fingers until they were clean.

I know the patch of lawn where the possum rotted grew back stronger.

I thought I saw your face in my Uncle's bedroom, and it was kind.