What Ward Prefers
        Some (the delicate ones) judging the spectacle cruel
        will prefer to die.
                —Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Yes, Ward is a delicate one, hardened
and softened by what life is not.
And where are you, Carlos, rough old poet?
Ward knows he prefers something, but death
seems too harsh, too final, too finito, and who is anyone
to say No more Ward? Besides, he has his fear
of commitment keeping him from suicide.
And he has his ego, whose wheels are still
sometimes so big that whole weeks
may be traversed in days. He has—what?
His time? His health? He has many years
lived a young man with an old and wounded heart
the memories of his memories wandering empty
hallways, clapping their callused heels across the floors.
Yes days now to Ward are like doors to walk through
and yes he knows tragedy is God—how many people
had he met who were made by it? But prefer to die?
Prefer the dirt beneath? What do you know, Carlos—
what can you know—of any suffering but your own?

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Copyright © 2018 Ryan Vine All rights reserved
from To Keep Him Hidden
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission