Michael Diehl, My Moon
one day i will die
death will come to take me with a note folded in her back pocket and she’ll hold the back of my head gently so that i don’t get hurt. you’re always falling, she’ll say. and i’ll laugh, because it’s true. i fall again and again and again but she’ll lead me to a velvety darkness with hands made for catching those who fall, almost as if she were wings. i sat in the darkness once with blood pouring from my nose like a faucet, my lips like bruised pears, face broken in three places and never needed even a single stitch; the force of my fall somehow only light enough, as though she saw me stumble, knew i wasn’t ready, and stuck her bony hand right through the veil. not yet, she whispered.
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Mela Blust
Review by Sue Fagalde Lick
I either love or hate prose poems. Some feel like impenetrable blocks of type, but Blust grabs me with the first line of this poem, with the “note folded in her back pocket” and “she’ll hold the back of my head gently so that I don’t get hurt.” I enjoy the self-deprecation of the narrator admitting she’s always falling, and I long to fall into the velvety darkness. These soft comforting images contrast with the blood, bruises, lips and face broken—and yet not a single stitch. And then, ah, the sweet surprise: “she saw me stumble, knew I wasn’t ready and stuck her bony hand right through the veil. Not yet, she whispered.”
We all want Death to be this way. This prose poem really works for me. Usually not a fan of poems all in lower-case, I find that here the lower-case letters are part of the velvety softness of Death, not even a capital letter to jar my fall.