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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
|
