the day after my death,
it's Greenie Schnetzer and the Generous Glands
singing "Defrocked Bishop of Love" and it is gorgeous.
The song combines the feel of "Get a Job" by the Silhouettes
with the sexy speed of "Roadrunner" as performed by
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and someone hears it
and realizes all this. Less than a day has passed
since my demise, and someone feeling comfortable
in a soft pair of old jeans suddenly remembers
the calm weary face of his mother, or sister,
a few weeks before she died of cancer, and also
sees back to his father one sad Christmas
saying "This Bulgarian wine is surprisingly good"
and has a sense of how people keep trying. Also
someone wearing an old herringbone jacket in a hallway
sings "Gypsy gal" softly and it means a great deal.
And around a corner comes a certain potential romantic partner
and says "Lunch?"
Meanwhile I'm dead.
In a school gym some guy makes an absurd hook shot
from downtown, nothing but net, with a certain Susan watching.
And a person wearing a Portland Sea Dogs cap
finishes a poem by rhyming "tyro" with "Cairo"
and places warm forehead against a cool pane of glass.
And there's more, involving children's games and tragic visions,
but already it seems obvious that my death is a bad mistake --
just think of Greenie Schnetzer! --
and I guess in fact I'd better live forever.
---Mark Halliday
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