And for what seemed like it was its own season,
the vigil my family held for weeks,
ended,
and the veil of their bated breath,
the whispers, the prayers,
broke away like a spider web,
sticking to everyone as my soul came undone.
*
How unfair,
for a poet,
not to share such a thing as what Death feels like,
so I will tell you here,
it is like falling into a pool of dark water,
and drifting to the bottom.
*
As the stitches of my spirit mended,
my feet drew cold,
as if I was wading through water,
about to be baptized,
then my stomach drew closed,
acid washed away
to be filled with the quiet that gathered my body so carefully,
until I felt the water lap at my lungs,
and all the sudden,
the sediment of breath that had stacked
in my lungs, like the layer of decaying leaves on the forest floor,
began to rattle with the ideas of what to say to excuse myself to all that I have ever known;
“You will keep my heart, while my soul goes,”
No, my sister is here, and she has her own heart,
she cannot carry on with her sister’s heart cold in her hands,
so I utter, creeping under the dark pool of gone-ness,
“I must go, the fog is lifting.”
*
Down I went,
to the bottom,
watching the glow from the oil lamp ripple on the still water,
onto the hide of Light,
which carried me out of the room in a such a blaze,
I thought my body was the light,
suspended from seeing a world without me, until-
the Light finally broke, like the opening of eyes from sleep,
to show me an open door to a coach,
and the coachman holding it,
who was a trim man in all black with an exposed skull that burned like a pearl
in the midday blaze of the Sun that stared us down in the blue sky.
*
I was now in a canyon, in the epicenter of a dried out river,
surrounded by a crowd of vespers,
diluted people watching me on Last Breath
as they waited.
I turned to the coachman,
and greeted him,
“Death,”
as if I knew him, like an old friend.
*
“Call me Poetry,”
he replied,
as he strolled to his team of horses;
four stallions that flickered like flame from
flesh to bone, to flesh again.
He patted the nearest one's shoulder, and grinned.
*
His eyes looked me over, for his eyes, were embers that either grew or shrank in the orbital cavities of his skull to designate his emotion, they now squinted as they studied me,
and I did not feel the Sun’s heat, but his,
and he, as Death does, pulled me in with his dark gravity,
and he knowing, held his hand out to receive my hand.
*
He looked at our hands, set to each other, cold and colder, and kissed my skin,
setting a jolt like Life throughout my body,
his eyes crackled as he looked up to me.
“Valorous, Emily, I think for you,
I shall make a special bargain.”
I chuckled,
and watched as Death stood, towering before me.
*
“A bargain, my lord?”
He nodded,
“A custom, all humans ask for it,
but now, I offer it.
Emily Bronte,
may I have you as my own
poet, and have you whisper my name,
which is, as I previously stated, Poetry,
for all of Eternity?”
*
Another rush, this one keeping in my skin,
like butterflies in a cage, tickling my resurrected heart
with the daring excitement of conspiration, temptation.
*
I replied to Death, “For what am I to be for the rest of my life,
but yours?”
*
Art by Elisar Haydar @ehilhr on IG.
*
The Word Not World Series (WNW) is an interactive anthology where, once a week, I share a photo and peers give me words that inspired them. Their words inspire poetry, like this one. This poem was inspired by “whisper,” from @catscratch345 (IG), “valorous” from @angela_psalm (IG), “bargain,” from @braggcory (IG), “conspire,” from
, and “dare,” from .Thank you for your inspiration. If you would like to join in on the fun, I post the picture prompt every Saturday on Substack, and my Instagram page @enis.st.sparrow
Oo I love the storytelling of this