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1 | --- | ||
2 | title: Dead man | ||
3 | genre: verse | ||
4 | |||
5 | id: deadman | ||
6 | toc: "Dead man" | ||
7 | |||
8 | project: | ||
9 | title: Elegies for alternate selves | ||
10 | class: elegies | ||
11 | order: 9 | ||
12 | prev: | ||
13 | - title: The boar | ||
14 | link: boar | ||
15 | next: | ||
16 | - title: The angel to Abraham | ||
17 | link: angeltoabraham | ||
18 | ... | ||
19 | |||
20 | | The dead man finds [his way into our hearts][] | ||
21 | | by [opening the door][] and walking in. | ||
22 | |||
23 | | He pours himself [a drink][], something like | ||
24 | | German cognac, from the mini-bar. He starts talking | ||
25 | |||
26 | | aimlessly about hunting or some bats he saw | ||
27 | | on the way over, wheeling around each other | ||
28 | |||
29 | | like [x-rays][] around bones and soft tissue. | ||
30 | | The dead man can see x-rays now, he says, | ||
31 | |||
32 | | a perk of his [condition][]. | ||
33 | | It's not so bad, he says, though | ||
34 | |||
35 | | he stops short of saying it's as good as | ||
36 | | being alive, an omission we can, ultimately, | ||
37 | |||
38 | | forgive. There's [a short silence][] where nothing | ||
39 | | is said, we're just looking at him as he looks | ||
40 | |||
41 | | at the ceiling or through it. He looks good | ||
42 | | for being dead. We mention this to him | ||
43 | |||
44 | | but he just looks embarrassed. He mentions | ||
45 | | eels he saw in the aquarium earlier, how they knot | ||
46 | |||
47 | | while mating. For hours, it's just a huge mass | ||
48 | | of [eel flesh, he says, undulating in the water][]. | ||
49 | |||
50 | | We nod, waiting for what he'll say next. He seems | ||
51 | | uncomfortable carrying the conversation, but we | ||
52 | |||
53 | | can't think of anything either. Now it's his turn | ||
54 | | to look at us, and [ours to stare at the ceiling][] | ||
55 | |||
56 | | or wherever. Finally, we mention the knots we tied | ||
57 | | in Boy Scouts, especially the loop---a noose? he asks--- | ||
58 | |||
59 | | but we say no, the one with the rabbit in its hole | ||
60 | | and the tree it goes around. The dead man | ||
61 | |||
62 | | knows that knot, he says, it's a good knot. But what | ||
63 | | he really likes is the rabbit, coming out of its hole | ||
64 | |||
65 | | in the morning, eating some grass, and a fox creeping | ||
66 | | out of its hiding place and chasing the rabbit around | ||
67 | |||
68 | | the tree, back into its hole, where it always ends up safe. | ||
69 | |||
70 | [his way into our hearts]: last-bastion.html | ||
71 | [opening the door]: words-meaning.html | ||
72 | [a drink]: ex-machina.html | ||
73 | [x-rays]: x-ray.html | ||
74 | [condition]: initial-conditions.html | ||
75 | [a short silence]: creation-myth.html | ||
76 | [eel flesh, he says, undulating in the water]: spittle.html | ||
77 | [ours to stare at the ceiling]: moongone.html | ||