written as if emily dickenson were writing as me

i saw death today
he smiled
& asked me questions
i couldn’t answer
but he reminded me
of you, the soft
way he smiled
& how he said
“hush” when complimented.
so what else
was i to do?
life’s taught me
how to be alone
& now here’s
a consort.
it’s not you,
it’s never you
but i will go
with him
i will go.

We are practiced at forgiving
ourselves, some of us too practiced.
We lose our tempers. The bank sends
angry letters. Who among us has never
been a traitor or a user? I didn’t love
you or know you & you certainly
didn’t love me. Some of us
are immediately tired of your death
& the bleating tributes, glossing
of your crimes, the whole televised
hagiography. When you get wherever
we might go, ask Tupac the gangbanger
Diana the adulterer, or Kurt the junkie
to explain how it works, how we who
cannot forgive our ex-lovers, parents,
or, Christ, the jerk who cut us off
on the freeway will transfigure
a huckster into a poet, offer sainthood
for marrying into influence, or prophet
status to a pop suicide. But it’s no honor.
Was there anyone
who saw you as you are & still loved
you? When the posthumous
awards come don’t peer
down from the heavens & mistake
that for absolution. It’s not. Listen,
when I was 9 I stole my father’s
walkman so I could listen to your songs
my friend taped for me from the radio.
He put the same song back to back
so I wouldn’t have to rewind. It was called
“Human Nature.” My parents
grounded me for a month for that &
when I turned 10 gave me a boombox

& your hit album. Night after night I cradled
that machine in my arms & fell asleep
to your songs. When I found out
you were gone I put my iPod
on repeat. This was never about you. God,
we’re so selfish. My childhood
is slipping away from me, thread
by thread. I have a potbelly, a divorce
& gray hair. Back then my friends & sisters
choreographed a dance to your
song & performed it for our bemused
parents & then trapped fireflies
in glass jars. Sometimes we’d remember
to punch holes with a nail
in the lids. Sometimes not. Either way
after lights out our rooms
would pulse with the soft chemical
glow of lightning bugs signaling
out to companions
who could never come.
In my bed, the boombox warmed
my arm with its battery burn
( & this may not be true )
but I remember fading to sleep
while the ping of fireflies smacking
against glass was strangely keeping
time with your song.