The Dead Don’t Need Reminding
(an Ars Poetica)


This is the ritual

repeat a name

until there is a small grave

worn into the tongue

which is why I debated calling this poem

self-portrait as a cheap shovel in expensive soil

but I guess this fits tooI guess I fit here too


I don’t take up much space

maybe by design maybe out of habit

I say I’m dying I point and say drought

I’m pointing to me most often

sometimes someone else

all the mirrors bleed into each other

it’s hard to keep track


I wonder sometimes how many faces

people think are mine

I close my eyes and the walls

weep dirt someone died again

and I feel it somewhere near my throat


The other week I read something about me

dying I Garvey like that

and someone said it was everything

which I’m sure means The World

I never wanted to be the world to flood this publicly

I never wanted to be the world not this one at least


I am trying to say

that I want somewhere else

that I am only a small purgatory

I am trying to let loose the dead

I am trying not to spend their breath

reminding them only of what was lost

I am trying to be a heaven

I am dying in the attempt

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