The Rules of Death by Jennifer Crow
Possession is nine tenths of death:
a nine-pointed pattern laid on a black marble floor,
a nine-clawed dragon breathing ash,
a nine-forked bolt of lightning burning down cities.
What slips in, when the last sigh slides
between chapped lips, when the last twitch
stills, that’s what ghosts carry with them
into shadow, or what carries them where gods can’t reach.
Closure, for the lucky, shuts the door on haunting.
What grace exists beyond the grave lies in having the strength
to drift beyond the past, or even the present.
The dead, in endless future tense, loop in and out
of our sight when the quantum entanglement of their dreams
brushes ours. Ghosts trade memory for a map out,
trade passion for a path, and what we call back
begins at the ragged point where fate cut the thread loose.
Nice and tidy.
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