---
title: Dead man
genre: verse

id: deadman
toc: "Dead man"

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 9
    prev:
    - title: The boar
      link: boar
    next:
    - title: The angel to Abraham
      link: angeltoabraham
...

| The dead man finds [his way into our hearts][]
| by [opening the door][] and walking in.

| He pours himself [a drink][], something like
| German cognac, from the mini-bar.  He starts talking

| aimlessly about hunting or some bats he saw
| on the way over, wheeling around each other

| like [x-rays][] around bones and soft tissue.
| The dead man can see x-rays now, he says,

| a perk of his [condition][].
| It's not so bad, he says, though

| he stops short of saying it's as good as
| being alive, an omission we can, ultimately,

| forgive.  There's [a short silence][] where nothing
| is said, we're just looking at him as he looks

| at the ceiling or through it.  He looks good
| for being dead.  We mention this to him

| but he just looks embarrassed.  He mentions
| eels he saw in the aquarium earlier, how they knot

| while mating.  For hours, it's just a huge mass
| of [eel flesh, he says, undulating in the water][].

| We nod, waiting for what he'll say next.  He seems
| uncomfortable carrying the conversation, but we

| can't think of anything either.  Now it's his turn
| to look at us, and [ours to stare at the ceiling][]

| or wherever.  Finally, we mention the knots we tied
| in Boy Scouts, especially the loop---a noose? he asks---

| but we say no, the one with the rabbit in its hole
| and the tree it goes around.  The dead man

| knows that knot, he says, it's a good knot.  But what
| he really likes is the rabbit, coming out of its hole

| in the morning, eating some grass, and a fox creeping
| out of its hiding place and chasing the rabbit around

| the tree, back into its hole, where it always ends up safe.

[his way into our hearts]: last-bastion.html
[opening the door]: words-meaning.html
[a drink]: ex-machina.html
[x-rays]: x-ray.html
[condition]: initial-conditions.html
[a short silence]: creation-myth.html
[eel flesh, he says, undulating in the water]: spittle.html
[ours to stare at the ceiling]: moongone.html