Two Poems About Death

Here are two poems I wrote yesterday. Death has recently begun stalking my English classes. In the past month four of my students have claimed to have had deaths in the family. Frankly, I find it a bit odd--so odd, in fact, that I'm beginning to find it all rather amusing. Does that make me a bad person? I can't say. What I can say, though, is that any relative of any of my students ought to be on his or her guard. Apparently I am bad luck.

The poems:

Another Excuse

Forgive me

if my sympathy

is running dry—

your’s

is the fourth death

this term.

My eternal

condolences.

A Teacher to His Absent Student

I can imagine you

sitting in some church

in central Kentucky

your dead grandmother

stretched out beside

the pulpit

her wrinkled face

only slightly more waxy

than it had been

in life.

Tell me, student,

what is it like

to look into

the grim grinning

face of death

and know,

bereaved, that you

have missed

my class?