O Death

by Hope Weidemann

Professor says,
“Write a description of death as a person.”
Death is a member of the cleanup crew.
Death is the scapegoat
we beckon after the dirty work of Earth is done.
Death can be innocent.
Death only comes after the white flag has been waved.
Earth gives illness
gives pain
gives mercy only on occasion.
Death gifts peace
offers solace
gives the breath of relief after the war is done.
Death leaves trails of tears
of a sea of grief he had no choice in enraging.

But sometimes death is a thief.
Death steals life from an infant before the first breath is drawn,
leaves a mother swooning as the body of their child bleeds out between her legs,
or worse is born blue after he wrapped the umbilical cord, pumping life, until stillness comes.
Death is always waiting
sometimes with patience.
Sometimes he comes unexpectedly when a child
collapses in practice because of an undiagnosed condition he took advantage of.
Death yearns for the life-support to be turned off,
whispers,
“surrender”
into a parent’s ear when their child is found unconscious on the side of the road, skull crushed.

Perhaps at best,
death is an antihero.
He brings a peace only the dead feel
as the rush before the fade comes.
The living are nearly always left
mourning morning after morning after morning
in disbelief of the deep hole he digs.
But the hole is captivating, draws us in until soon
we are asking for him too.
Death simply is a man not created to be understood.