why i am not dying


because all of me that is dead
is stringy hair and skin cells,
and those i can shake off, cast aside,
drop my corpses everywhere; i can

stack my pasts and presents
as gifts to the bronze of your doorknob
before it turns. It turns,
your circles or spirals or

corkscrew curves; you hold on tight
but you're watching ahead.
It's not when you are born
that you begin to die

but it is death that stops
our birth, finally; we are born
a million times over into
a changing world, of tides and moons,

of sleep, dreams, life and
little deaths, living all the while.
Haywire, live wire, electric-wet wire,
synapses; i won't be dying

until i'm done (i'll never be).
Live, love, jump from bridges
as you burn them, be your reason
not to die, or else you're already finished.


(february 2003)