waylaid

Death, you are more successful than America,
Even if we don’t choose to join you, we do.
I’ve just become aware of this conscription
Where no one’s marble doesn’t come up;
No use carving your name on a tree, exchanging vows
Or not treading on the cracks for luck
Where there’s no statistical anomalies at all
And you know not the day nor the hour, or even if you do
Timor mortis conturbat me. No doubt we’d
Think this in a plunging jet and the black box recorder
Would note each individual, unavailing scream.
But what gets me is how compulsory it is.
“He was never a joiner” they wrote on his tomb.
At least bingeing becomes heroic and I can see
Why the Victorians
So loved drawn-out death-bed scenes:
Huddled before our beautiful century, they knew
What first night nerves were all about.


John Forbes