---
title: The Death Zone
genre: verse

epigraph:
    content: And my life became death.
    attrib: Philip Gould
    link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/11/19/245996903/embracing-life-and-death

ekphrastic:
    image: gould.png
    title: Philip Gould
    link: 'http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/11/19/245996903/embracing-life-and-death'

project:
    title: Stark Raving
    css: stark
    order: 7
    next:
    - title: The Big Dipper
      link: big-dipper
    - title: Exasperated
      link: exasperated
    prev:
    - title: Exasperated
      link: exasperated
    - title: AMBER alert
      link: amber-alert
...

When I think of death I think \
of Peter Falk in _The Princess Bride_ patting \
[his pockets][] as he leaves the room

Life is a series of doors or so \
they say but I ask them this \
where does that last door lead?

For Falk maybe it leads backstage \
a black-walled catered affair with stage \
lights slowly baking stale muffins

[Sweaty cheese][] leaking onto dried-out \
grapes a chocolate fountain clogged \
by some errant strawberry crown

but this is not where it leads for you or \
for me that door opens onto darkness marked \
only by a trellis or the lid of a casket

the door of the [earth's womb][] opening \
finally to accept us and with us the dirt \
not to grow more strawberries for Falk

but to pad his feet as he walks overhead \
to visit someone he certainly cares about \
but whose name is lost to posterity.

[his pockets]: creation-myth.html
[Sweaty cheese]: i-wanted-to-tell-you-something.html
[earth's womb]: about-the-author.html