Real Death

Death is real
 Someone's there and then they're not
 And it's not for singing about
 It's not for making into art
 When real death enters the house, all poetry is dumb
 When I walk into the room where you were
 And look into the emptiness instead
 All fails
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 My knees fail
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 My brain fails
 Words fail
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 Crusted with tears, catatonic and raw
 I go downstairs and outside and you still get mail
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 A week after you died a package with your name on it came
 And inside was a gift for our daughter you had ordered in secret
 And collapsed there on the front steps I wailed
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 A backpack for when she goes to school a couple years from now
 You were thinking ahead to a future you must have known deep down would not include you
 Though you clawed at the cliff you were sliding down
 Being swallowed into a silence that is bottomless and real
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 It's dumb
 And I don't want to learn anything from this
 I love you