Published January, 2005 in Coffee Press Journal; copyright, J. Donald Coonrod. I was never comfortable with this poem from the day I wrote it. But something in me likes its sort of wholesome interface of life and death and the little, weird circumstances that sometimes seem to separate them and makes them folksy and easier to bear.

Forgive me if I seem
to be grasping at straws
in the wind—
it’s called old age
when you can’t seem
to get out life’s
open door at sunrise.

When I went out later
I found the earth turned and
a bare skeleton showing through.

I chased off the dawn
and took the poor fellow in;
he was a friend I knew when
he had only an inconsequential
muscle pull.

But now we were the same,
he a dead man, and I
a dead man still seeking fame.

Why do we want to keep
youth all that busy—
death is no vacation and
lasts longer.