Celebrity Death Poem by Patti Masterman

In dead celebrities,
you could almost see death hanging
there in their eyes,
suspended like a waiting
birthday surprise

I see it shrouded now
in photos,
films that once stared
straight through me:
how they missed the beat of their death
by seconds;
but I see it, retroactively.

Marilyn's livid white
of death mysterious
stricken down in her prime
so that there was no time;
no time for makeup,
or mine of expressions
to take hard edges off
foreshadowed signs.

Subcutaneous death,
awaiting eyelid's curtains
to flutter open
one last time-
whirring cameras
they won’t hear again-

Get as close as you want to now,
you know the flash won't bother them.