Dispute for Death

They dramatize the dead, as though the dead

could paint their flags, or win the right parades;

they weave imaginary graves with print

of colored stars, and turn the buried mouths.

A man who asked no pensions for his smiles,

and stored no idle flowers in his house:

his children could not feel him when he died,

since any death grows quick for cheerful men.

Who employs him then, for his peculiar joy?

He can not save his hands to advertise.

Will he explain his nether attitude?

'When could you stop to listen, if he did?

Another tore his tumbled guts with hands

that ran like rabbits in a hedge, and now-

no parlor crepe assists at his demise,

no relatives solicit his consent.

The dead restrict their compass to an inch,

and bring no summer measure to its points.

They will not wait to circle our design,

or bathe the evil figures on our charts.