Instead Poem by Stephen Brian Brady

Instead of saying
what it's like being dead

the ghost of my dead cat
detectable in the infra-red
forestalled my questioning

'I never understood lemons'

if only I'd had the chance to explain
but I was caught off-guard
and life isn't easy
maybe an awkward silence would have sufficed
a nervous cough
time to think twice

I see the lemons in the bowl
yellow
and I'll pretend
not to notice the semblance of nipples
at one end