death is that ancient cousin
who shows up unannounced
walks straight into the kitchen
drinks our water
and says he only came to see how we’re doing
he doesn’t believe in farewells
doesn’t know what to do with tenderness
so he always leaves us
one empty chair at the table
death has the habit of taking
not what’s left
but what’s missing
as if collecting gaps
and we, poets, pretend we understand
because writing is exactly that:
making an inventory of absences
like counting bones in a sack
death returns every year
like a relative who lost the path
but never the right to enter
and each visit dries us a little more
until we’re reduced
to what we truly were:
a handful of names
and the memory of who didn’t stay
death keeps our stories
like a careless archivist
folding the pages wrong
so the creases become the only truth
death never apologizes
he simply adjusts the silence in the room
as if tuning an instrument
we never learned to play
death walks through our memories
with the indifference of someone
checking the weather
before deciding what to steal next
death leaves behind a dust
that settles on our names
and we spend years
trying to breathe through it.
