Is death a seed born in us, growing unseen

ripening at some pre-determined moment

a heart stops, a car strikes, cancer takes a final bite

 

Is it possible to die a little slower or stretch time out

like a sleeping lion

or salt water taffy

 

Can you bargain with Time, haggling and hammering

out deals like a summit meeting

but holding hardly any chips, only a few memories

 

Like her first cry or moments of tidal love

that comfort you during the lean years

memories you are willing to exchange

 

For a minute, an hour, a day

can you wear Time down until, totally exhausted,

setting his scythe aside, consulting his ledger

 

fiddling with his abacus, doing the math

like your granddaughter struggling with algebra

making sure it adds up, nothing extra

 

Nothing left over

he looks at you with tunnel eyes, his brow

narrowed and gnarled

 

I am an old man he sighs, twirling

his white beard, scratching his ears

where rogue hairs have begun to sprout

 

He brushes away ash from a burned out star

before handing you a scrap of paper

three days

 

You write your lover’s name on it

postponing phantom pain

written in the black glyph of forever

 

Claire Scott

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.

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