Death Comes A-Callin’
By John Herlihy

Death sometimes comes a-knockin’,
. . . but I wouldn’t let him in.
Death sometimes comes a-callin’,
. . . but I certainly wouldn’t listen.
I breathe the night air that hints of coming rain;
. . . smells of wood smoke and lilacs relieve my pain.
Some nights death walks gingerly past the house,
. . . out in the yard to peer in the window like a mouse.
A bone hand raised to shade the deadly eyes,
. . . that held the pitch darkness of night in disguise.
The fiend seemed to want to crawl under the covers,
. . . to end my precious life as once-upon-a-time lovers.

There he is, nothing but hooded shadow,
. . . shine light into its face that swallows the shine.
There he is, just standing on my porch bending low;
. . . for one brief moment, time seems to stand still.
Even the wind settles down as if frozen in time;
. . . by God, there is very little ink left in my quill.
Not surprising, he brought an aura of doom;
. . . shadows gathered within its fabric of gloom.
But the door to my heart was locked and bolted,
. . . not even death himself could get in.
The devil just stood there a-smokin’,
. . . his thin lips lined with a knowing grin.

The kiss of death always remembered,
. . . freely offered but no love tendered.
He said: I will come back again tomorrow,
. . . in whatever form that may take.
I will take that soul you have on borrow,
. . . no matter how many objections you make.
It is then that I came to reckonin’,
. . . how much time still left to spare.
Old age is famous for its speculatin’,
. . . how many days still left for me to share.
I got up then from my casual sittin’ ,
. . . there on the porch with my faithful kitten.

When lo and behold what was it to see fallin’,
. . . just a-hangin’ from the knob on the door,
But a hand written note in chicken scrawlin’,
. . . be back in thirty minutes, not a second more.
I couldn’t help but start a-wonderin’,
. . . 30 minutes from when, but no one to ask.
I turned around then to scan the horizon,
. . . only a cactus and a few sagebrush up to the task.
I turned back to enter through the door, thinking,
. . . you’re a lying son of a bitch, and blinking.
When an elongated shadow fell down across the floor,
. . . now fallen into the well of night, I could see no more.