In this urban core you fall facedown or float.
There’s no magic in dying.
We all know how to do it.
But being dead must be boring.
Here, where the homeless have the best phones,
Hanging up is the same as letting go.
But whom do they call?
Who would answer? A mother, maybe.
I haven’t called mine in weeks.
It’s okay, she doesn’t mind.
We’re not phone people.
I can’t properly listen to you unless I can see your hands,
framing and fanning and flying—
picking up the indigent words and feeding them meaning
—making them sing.
I guess any setting holds some hellishness.
But true Hell is personal.
Death probably shouldn’t be scary, but it is.
An old mad bum says, “It’s just gravity letting go of you.”
How perfect is that?
Steve Lambert (Gavin S. Lambert) was born in Bossier City, Louisiana, in 1974, and grew up in Central Florida. He now lives in Saint Augustine with his wife and daughter.
Really amazing stuff. Effortless.
Fantastic!
Yes!