Examination At The Womb Door (That Little Death)

Death scratches at my door,  
yet I can not fathom it,  
so I am better than it.  
I can see it with my crow-eyes  
and it is not me, but another  
worming in the grass, half-blind,  
but not deaf.  
It hears me as I call to it:       That Death.  

I scry a branch in the dim light of  
outer space which damply revolves  
around me and I grant it no mercy,  
that little thing which stalks itself,  
and cannot reach me,  
cannot tell me what it is  
or tries to become  
but red spills and a silenced tongue.  
It wills itself away,  
pities itself in many ways:       That Death.  
 
I am not stronger than it, or love,  
but I can outfly its reach, its trials.  
I can eat and peck at its great successes;  
I am fueled by its spoils,  
awakened by its cries.
I hear it stalking me in my mind  
but I shall win by staying of it behind  
watching the little one die.  
The weak sparrow with its meager song  
is nothing to me, nothing to it,  
but to everything:       That little Death.  
 
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