PS Cottier

mass grave

Death and the missus

Death is a doughnut; we lick his sprinkles every day.

We feel their shadows on our lips after they have buried

into our own grave of stomach. Burps are their ghosts,

rattling sonic chains.  Perhaps we are the doughnuts,

dunked in Death’s ever morning coffee, as he chats

with Mrs Death.  Mrs Death is a knitter, has been working

on the same cardigan these twice two million years,

needles clicking like clocks before there ever were clocks.

It’s a domestic thing, after all.  One minute you’re watching

The Bill (you poor sad sod) and the next, you’re gardening

from below, totally rooted, rooted as.  And Death sighs,

and has a little break at Donuts R Us, hands trembling

as he cups that endless drink. He gloves himself in sugar.

And then he gets back to it; the icing and the holes.

P.S. Cottier

First published in The Mozzie, Queensland.