a taste of ‘Death’

230 writers contemplate the end …

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She has chosen a favorite poem / to be read from the altar, / a poem she wrote herself for the occasion. from Planning the Funeral by Gloria Heffernan

The thing about death is, it’s way more boring than you think. from The Plant-Based Death by Tim Jarvis

Then they slip into death without a thought. from Kill policy by Glenis Moore

Suzanne told Emmett she loved me, and he threatened to shoot off my kneecaps if I continued seeing her. from Remembering Suzanne by Ronald T. Hardwick

It was an effort to talk. Roopmati said, her voice low, “Let it be, Seema. I don’t want any more. I have had enough.” from The Flavour of Life by Abha Iyengar

no awareness, no pain, / three respirations per minute until the last. from Seems Insufficient by Wendy Cartwright

When my father called to say goodbye he / didn’t bring jazz on his lips. from Last Words by Amy Soricelli

‘You kids have to know I’m not going to do what Dad did.’ from Commonsense Oncology by Sandy Bexon

Too old to tackle horses, herd the cows, / or trek with the creamery-destined caravan, / you were Lord of the Hearth from Woolgathering by Michael Durack

Heads are bowed, a brooch full of pearls / and diamonds gleams in the April noon. from A Farewell by Sarah Crabtree

Skirts, tops, summer shorts, / costume jewelry tangled with real gold chains, / thrown in a drawer with coupons, campaign buttons. from Mother’s Clothes by Janet McCann

The cups it dispenses are flimsy and unrecyclable, a fuck you to the future. from Waiting Room by Richard A. Shury

Cards no longer arrive in the post. The full moon is blank, a tarnished old coin. from Afterwards by Steve Evans

We also learned at the party that there was a daughter before Rose who died as a young child. from Taking Secrets to the Grave by Mark Donnelly

Winter streets of silence lead away / from where I hang black cloth to claim the dead. from Between Shadows by Susan Kelley

Beth stored his ashes in a handcrafted box that she placed on the mantel so she could talk with him daily. from Embers by Jill Muhrer

This is the way to heaven, she’s sure, where / she’ll be reunited with her beloved dead from Preparing for the Afterlife by Joan Mazza

She threw seed for the birds and washed the cup and saucer. She left the bed unmade. It wouldn’t be needed again. from All Said and Done by Carol Adams

Neither of us will be buried there. Our ashes will be tossed off a mountain in Vermont, by our friend’s daughter, Becca. from Epigraph by Bev Wright

Anchored to this spinning planet and knowing the next / eclipse will happen in a world we’ve left – from The Last by Jim LaVilla-Havelin

but she told me she hated the single rose—/placed there when a resident died from one red rose by Lucy Tyrrell

I remember the look that young doctor gave me. Like an accomplice. I nodded, full of guilt. from Day One After Mum by Britta Benson

He watched the nurse feel for a pulse and she shook her head. from Marv and Gramps by Paul Beckman

I, on the other hand, wasn’t quite ready to release my allotted share of what was once my father’s flesh and blood and beating heart. from Ashes to Ashes by Hilary Laidlaw

We agree we all should / get together sometime, / sometime besides such sad / times from Why I Love Funerals by Terri Watrous Berry

His successful career, his son and daughter, / three grandchildren, and myriads of friends. / Not without problems, but all enriching. from Come to This by Jane H. Fitzgerald

He told us about a workmate who’d lost his footing and cartwheeled over into the empty space between the steel stanchions punching up towards the blue sky. from Employment History by GP Hyde

Any other step toward the spiritual was perceived as unprofessional, ungodly, or someone else’s turf, and the Sacred Space was treated as wasted space. from Death Business by Fran Prem

Lying there, is the man finally set free from the strictures of regional life as a blue-collar worker, a man shaped by his culture, his parents and nine siblings. from An Unveiling by JA Rose

I wonder if they’re orbiting us in graceful circles, / aimless wide yawns, like bees around a sunflower from Being Dead by CJ Rakay