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+---
+title: Dead man
+genre: verse
+
+id: deadman
+toc: "Dead man"
+
+project:
+    title: Elegies for alternate selves
+    class: elegies
+    order: 9
+    prev:
+    - title: The boar
+      link: boar
+    next:
+    - title: The angel to Abraham
+      link: angeltoabraham
+...
+
+| The dead man finds [his way into our hearts][]
+| by [opening the door][] and walking in.
+
+| He pours himself [a drink][], something like
+| German cognac, from the mini-bar.  He starts talking
+
+| aimlessly about hunting or some bats he saw
+| on the way over, wheeling around each other
+
+| like [x-rays][] around bones and soft tissue.
+| The dead man can see x-rays now, he says,
+
+| a perk of his [condition][].
+| It's not so bad, he says, though
+
+| he stops short of saying it's as good as
+| being alive, an omission we can, ultimately,
+
+| forgive.  There's [a short silence][] where nothing
+| is said, we're just looking at him as he looks
+
+| at the ceiling or through it.  He looks good
+| for being dead.  We mention this to him
+
+| but he just looks embarrassed.  He mentions
+| eels he saw in the aquarium earlier, how they knot
+
+| while mating.  For hours, it's just a huge mass
+| of [eel flesh, he says, undulating in the water][].
+
+| We nod, waiting for what he'll say next.  He seems
+| uncomfortable carrying the conversation, but we
+
+| can't think of anything either.  Now it's his turn
+| to look at us, and [ours to stare at the ceiling][]
+
+| or wherever.  Finally, we mention the knots we tied
+| in Boy Scouts, especially the loop---a noose? he asks---
+
+| but we say no, the one with the rabbit in its hole
+| and the tree it goes around.  The dead man
+
+| knows that knot, he says, it's a good knot.  But what
+| he really likes is the rabbit, coming out of its hole
+
+| in the morning, eating some grass, and a fox creeping
+| out of its hiding place and chasing the rabbit around
+
+| the tree, back into its hole, where it always ends up safe.
+
+[his way into our hearts]: last-bastion.html
+[opening the door]: words-meaning.html
+[a drink]: ex-machina.html
+[x-rays]: x-ray.html
+[condition]: initial-conditions.html
+[a short silence]: creation-myth.html
+[eel flesh, he says, undulating in the water]: spittle.html
+[ours to stare at the ceiling]: moongone.html