I’ll Still Be Dead Poem by Michael Philips

After I die
some will mourn
Others will put on the face of mourning
They’ll gather together at two o’clock
and be home for dinner.
They’ll be wondering what’s for dinner.
Maybe they planned ahead and defrosted something.
Meanwhile, I’ll still be dead,
and all of my passions and sexual adventures and
school exams and career choices and career dead-ends
will have vanished with the whack of a baseball bat.
They’ll scatter my ash someplace pretty
but most of it will mix with dust and grime
and deposit itself on unremarkable fields or
sink to the bottom of water.
That’s okay because I’ll still be dead.

Springtime will burst with blossoms and bugs
and turn to summer
Kids will graduate and parents will smile
and wait for marriages and grandchildren
New singers and movie stars
will face the klieg lights and then
slide into tell-all books and then out-of-print.
The earth will keep rotating and new
planets and galaxies will be discovered
and described with mathematics.

All of these will occur and recur like premonitions
and I will have no comments or satiric asides.
I will not smirk or raise an eyebrow.
I will not smile knowingly or put down the newspaper to
reach over and hold you tight.
I will not preserve or remember this intimate moment with you.
I will not say your name or recall your sweet smell.
That is why I am breathing deeply now in rhythm with your breathing,
That is why I am closing my eyes and caressing your skin
slowly