Dead

by Kevin Sweeney

Although I didn’t take Anatomy and Physiology I (or II)
I understand from reading I’ve done on my own that
when you’re dead, you’re dead. It doesn’t matter if
you’re dead in Boston, New York, Richmond, Dublin,
Hartford, Uniontown, PA or Kansas City, Kansas. In fact,
if you’re dead in Quincy or Salem, you’ll still be dead
when they transport your body to Boston. Dead in
Yonkers doesn’t mean you’re undead on Staten Island.
Dead in Mexico City means you won’t be enjoying the
eternal spring in Guadalajara. If I read about your sudden
or prolonged demise in the Maine Sunday Telegram, I
know that you’re still dead in the Lewiston Sun-Journal
even if no one in Sabattus spent money to have your obit
printed for the citizens of Auburn, Litchfield, and Turner.
Dead means it’s over, The End, Sayonara, Adios, Good
Night, Irene. Questions about transcendence or the end
of consciousness belong in another poem. Not this one.
Here we’re only trying to establish one thing. If you’re
dead on Saturday in Skokie, nobody is looking for you
to walk beside the lake in Chicago on Sunday. That’s,
because you’re dead. Even in St. Louis.