escape

The Escape

A man coming home from work saw a shadowy figure
leaning against an olive tree.
It was death sharpening his scythe polishing his hoof.
Them and said, no, not me, I´m too young to die
furthermore, I have to go to Madrid and work as a solicitor’s clerk.
In Madrid, he knocked on the relevant door, opened and the devil
sat there smiling.
The death said, from now on, you are my little helper,
go back home and kill your parents their time has come.
Greatly disturbed, he took the first plane home, and there
leaning against the same tree death stood like a shadow
in the autumnal evening.
In the house, his parents were crying they had buried
their only son, but they didn´t see or hear him and he was truly
the devil’s helper.
This story is based on a Syrian tale of a man riding to Damascus
across the desert to Baghdad to avoid death.
A drone pilot mistook him for a jeep and fired a rocket.
The man had to walk to Baghdad, but without water and dates,
he perished.