Fear of Death Disturbs Me

I Google Timor mortis conturbat me.
"Will you miss me when I’m gone?"
by the Carter Family on CD . . .
I have disposed of my mirror,
my mask, and kept my fingers
moving. Imagine how the knuckle
knob expands, the knee buckles.
I better hurry, I’ll miss my plane–
call a cab, be on time to fly on out
of Burghville, landing in New York City.
How will I find her? All I have is Mr.
G. G. Carter’s word. My god, this city
draws me as though my heart were magnetized,
even when atrially fibrillating.
How old are those who begin to live
anew, enow, in time to cheat death
momentarily out of its inheritance?
Why do I need to know Irish Mama?
Isn’t it one Irish woman per man?
Better to be with Sephardi Chicana
Maria Teresa Leila Shulamit
bat Rivka, who was walking up two miles
of city streets to find the park
and somewhere to rest "drowsy and sated" . . .
phoning on the way: Haven’t heard your voice . . .
. . . No! Am I ever happy to hear yours . . .
How long, how long do we need to be dead
to be reborn? Fear that I will die soon
wars with the search for my antic, buoyant
final love, whose skin I have not touched yet.
But Irish Mama Anne McConnell now . . .
Are you sure it’s not O’Connell, Adore?
What kind of Irish would McConnell be?
Isn’t it Scots, or was it Ulster
lineage, whose McAlexander
lost its "Mc" before father Abraham
and his three brothers–one condemned–rode out
of Virginia’s Blue Ridge one bright morning.
. . . when horse was how the poor traveled, waiting
for a biplane to fly off Kitty Hawk.

(11 June 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander