Death is biological, but after

the first translation, there can be no other,

none but other, paring difference

until the only blade is proved too thick.

At two a.m., the airport’s full of words,

each bulletin comes through three times, each wants

attention said a different way. My mind,

an unmanned switchboard, dangles all its lines.

Although the chapel’s always empty, world

around, to look for David’s formula,

which banged away for answers, beat by beat,

becomes, I read (Monsieur?), a textbook blank,

a dash for me to fill—easy, strange,

irrelevant. This must be how you feel.

Or is it more like what I thought when I

first heard: that only some might understand

the words I’m using: death, say, unforeseen.

And, later, that it could have been a giving

back; instead we kept translation, meaning

you carry meaning with you, when you go.

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