The dead prefer their lawns turned down before they sleep—
blankets of white and green and brown to drown
the sounds of mound upon mound
of busyness and regret. Perhaps the suicide of television.
The dead do not cease their explorations even at the end
of what we may think is the end. See:
they return and would never rhapsodize of leaving us.
Each one of them alive, slim as wands and magicless.
They love to cling to the sounds of little friends
skating the canvas of a frozen pond, then sneak inside
to sleep the night—only to reawaken to the smell
of pudding on the stove and the promise
of another Christmas in the parlor. They are ready
as ever, like we, to shatter into smiles cold and thin as ice.
