Because death is all sorts of unpleasant,

let’s become bluebirds

in our next life.

 

Our tiny bodies

dipping

and and rising,

carrying the sky on our backs,

a symphony in our throats,

we would break

music against human ears

who would hears us

incomprehensible,

write songs attempting

to imitate us,

our tiny lives

ending in the jaws

of house cat.

 

Or perhaps

we can be trees.

We will stand still

grow as fast as patience,

give a voice to the wind,

give meaning to shade,

our fingertips

brushing against

each other’s fingertips

for ages.

We’ll grow old

and old

and each year

make new rings

as promises to each other

and ourselves

until our throats are split

by the weary lumberjacks,

or we wither

against angry flams.

 

It might be better

to be a fruit,

contain all of life

within ourselves.

I would like to be a watermelon,

you can be a peach,

I know a man who would make

a perfect apple.

We would live briefly,

but sweetly.

If we are lucky

our skin will split

against the earth,

our growth down into the soil

before our rise

to become more fruit,

or we’ll be plucked

by thirsty fingers

and break against

32 small, white, greedy stones.

 

There’s really

no way out of this mess

of death,

unfortunately.

Even if we chose to become gods

our shiny light

would eventually wane

as our believers

gradually forget

our significance

as they start to believe

in themselves,

what heathens

and blasphemers,

they do not understand.

 

Let’s give up, then,

and become typewriters

with our alphabetic smiles

our qwertys and yuiops

possessing all the potential energy

of undiscovered meaning,

our owners running their fingers

across our bodies frantically,

we shoot percussions into the night

in conversation

with the half-empty whisky-bottle

who complains she feels progressively emptier

in mouth-sized increments.

The typist will look at us

as though we contain all the answers

to every one of their fears.

They’ll yell obscenities at us

and we’ll pretend

they are prayers

for the gods we should have been.

 

Before long,

those fingers

will forget how to polish us,

dust will settle upon us,

rust will form in our joints.

We might be fortunate enough

to be relegated to museum displays,

begging for anyone to reach out a finger

so that we can give them meaning.

But their fingers

will have more important things to do

of course,

than to tinker with a relic,

so we will sit

with our soft existence

outliving everything

as we slowly slip into obsolescence.