Half-life

Death does its job for what?
A number of years?
A decade?
Well however long it lasts
it is your slave and your
friend, your rival, your twin, your
master;
someone to kiss, something to
work against.
A plow. A wave. A
shotgun.
But now it’s wearing off.
I tell you it’s wearing off now
so I will prowl the streets
like a Burmese dog.
Delirious and sniffing the dirt for grass,
poking for tastes of fire,
the sounds of some awful siren
or yellow stench of gasoline.

And when I find them
in their perfection

they will
kill me
again.