In the corner of my yard
in the mid-afternoon heat
in my hammock
with Pablo Neruda
between my legs,
my glasses off, bare-chested
and unbathed,
I think about death:
my body a lump
in a sack
swinging here:
all this,
a jarful of days
but you can’t see the insides
when you scrape it
with your knife
until one day,
it just comes
out dry
and there’s no more
to put on your bread
Is this what prompts us to carve
our initials in a tree,
or to tag a blank wall?
Is it the need to preserve
ourselves,
or just
the need
to be heard?
