I’ve lived with death from the beginning, at the edge

I’ve lived with death from the beginning, at the edge
of its villages. I sang it little songs, pried open its mildewed
pods until the seed fluff detonated in my face like, well you
know what it’s like when seeds detonate in your face. I lived
so close to death I got inured to it all, like being so comfortable
living in the underground house we didn’t notice the dirt walls
crawling with colonies of ants feeding their winged queens, or how
we got so used to living next to the train tracks that the screaming
whistle didn’t wake us. I’ve known the echoes of death’s amphibians
and the poems of its fine gentlemen with their monocles and top hats,
cravats and curls, their adverbs. I hate adverbs. I died but how
did I die? Swimmingly! Prettily! Open-throated Italian shirts,
white as eyeballs rolled back, cuff links and first-rate booze —
the green kind, green as heat lightning, as magic shoes.