Zombies

Who?

Who wants to really live? Raise your hands!

Now

let go the handles, drop the props, quit the game,

bare your breast to the knife, hurl yourself from the prow,

tumble tumble tumble into the void,

grab hold of the mane, digging your heels into those flanks,

smashing through the waves, who cares if you fall...

I

I never did that.

I made careful plans and took out insurance and wore sensible shoes and clipped my fingernails.

I never got high or drunk or laid.

I waited for the lights to turn green and washed colours and whites separately.

I went to bed on time and handed in all my homework.

I followed all the rules and made up some extra ones to be safe.

You

You never lived because you never died

Forty years cold in your skin, you raised a family, served your time in the firm.

You won prizes and wrote books.

Your tombstone was higher than theirs, its shadow longer.

Tonight, the undead awaken.

The zombie blinks, bemoaning those sunrises he never saw.

He stumbles the streets, arms outstretched,

Passing among the urgent suits hurrying for their trains

Clutching their regulation briefcases, harnessed safely in their old school colours

Each one glancing down their noses at the dead loser.

He's looking for a cliff to hurl himself from

High enough to give him time to live.