Fair to Middling Passages

Even your villains suffered
Physical bodies and died
And the world you say they
Left behind never existed
For them. For them, they
Never existed. Death that

Transfigured many deaths.
It's always horrific to face
The passage from here
To the end of everything
That ever was for the flesh
Left chained and howling.

I ate well. I wrote a poem.
I drank two drinks to
Celebrate. I'm not
Coming home. I'm
Coming home. I don't
Want what must come home.

Only one of my ancestors
Survived that whale road
Long enough to suffer
And die somewhere else,
Having mothered or sired
More dissolved desire.

Otherwise, I am the fable
That colors itself white.
Otherwise, I lie under
The moon and glow silver
Like everything else in the night.
My life has been too light.

If you survive this you will die
Of that. The ones who jumped
Into the waves singing seem
More poignant than the survivors
Who lived to die otherwise.
Why? Save a wretch. Lie me.