Читать книгу Dialogues with Rising Tides - Kelli Russell Agodon - Страница 17

When he says, Sometimes we learn the most from losing,

I think how often I’ve been bamboozled

by life, how I’ve dropped a quarter in a slot machine

and instead of cherries got coffins. Got death?

Yeah, I’ve seen the grim reaper wander

my neighborhood in a Chanel suit with a diamond-

studded scythe because we all want to be overdressed

for the afterlife, we all want to believe

there is a special place for us. But when I watched

the body of my nana fade into thinness I thought,

Please let me leave early—by plane crash, car accident,

lightning bolt—don’t let me hold on so long

I am a body longing for someone to text it

—Hey babe, I’m kind of into you. To say, I miss you

even though I don’t visit. Death and we butt-dial

the wrong person. Death on a good drunk

of port.

I remember my dad once saying,

You are worth more than you think, as I always sold myself

at a discount, and I wish I didn’t, I wish I didn’t

say how much I hurt on social media

but sometimes I just want to believe I’m not alone

like how we’re all doing cartwheels on life’s grass

until someone lands in a sinkhole, until one of us

decides it’s late and the streetlights

are telling us it’s time to return back home.