DEATH AND THE MAIDEN Comments

Vorüber! ach, vorüber!
Geh, wilder Knochenmann!
Ich bin noch jung, geh, Lieber!
Und rühre mich nicht an
one rain-slicked afternoon on the Autovia Uno
near Malaga, in a gentle swerve, where the crash
barrier snaps down the median like a frightened
steel worm, the Porsche cuts across and hits the
car in the oncoming lane, the car with boy and girl
and death in the Porsche takes the boy, the freeway
shoulder gets off lightest, receives only a scratch,
the girl comes out of a coma, glass sprinkles from
her hair, the mutilated boy, the girl's husband, is my
oldest son, they were married for a year, it sparkles,
the diadem death crowns her with, crowns her
widowhood with, that Death pointed to with
his forefinger


DEATH AND THE BOY


Puberty is a notified fire, a notified accident on the
way to manhood, said Puberty's father. Puberty is a
hell, said Puberty's mother; I think it will do him good
to be put in a freezer, then we can take him out when he's
grown up. None of them knew then about Puberty's death
and the autopsy that was to come. They didn't get him out
of the freezer to get him going again, ticking and going again
no after the autopsy Puberty had to go back in, had to stick
to the funeral, it was a couple of weeks until they got him
home, in an urn they got him, Puberty, the ashes of a
notified man
...
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