---
title: Dead man
id: deadman
genre: verse

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 9
    prev:
    - title: The boar
      link: boar
    next:
    - title: The angel to Abraham
      link: angeltoabraham
...

| A dead man finds his way into our [hearts][]
| simply by opening the door and walking in.
| He pours himself a drink, speaks aimlessly
| about hunting or some bats he saw
| on the way over, wheeling around each other.
| Look how [they spin][], he says, it's like the
| ripples atoms make as they hurl past each other
| in the space between their bodies.
| We mention the eels at the aquarium, how
| their bodies [knot while mating][].  The dead man
| was a boyscout once, and tied a lot of knots.
| His favorite was the one with the rabbit
| and the hole, and the rabbit going in and out
| and around the tree.  The dead man liked it
| because he liked to pretend that the rabbit
| was running from a fox, and the rabbit
| always ended up safe, back in his hole.

[hearts]: words-meaning.html
[they spin]: moongone.html
[knot while mating]: spittle.html