November, everything says—you too
must end.
But our bodies, stiff
and soggy though they are,
keep on
lurching
to the mailbox, slouching toward
the grocery store.
The grim cadaverous
limbs of trees, the bloated wreck
of leaves
clotting each gutter,
the bleak iron
fences, the toneless concrete;
the souls of everything here
keep whispering—
like us, soon, you too shall be.
Yet we go about our tedious business;
we have duties
to attend. We may be
frightened, but we, the living
shall heed no injunction
from any thing which is dead.
