Today's poem is by John Gallaher

Death Arrives On a Pale Horse
       

Someone coughs across the room and the cough travels miles.
It could travel right by you without slowing or stopping.
It could nestle deep inside you. Like how every April,
ants start appearing on my kitchen counter within two days
of Kenton saying ants are appearing on his kitchen
counter. You watch the wave across the map. The wind.
I've killed a dozen this morning, because the more that arrive,
the more that will arrive. We're out of traps, so I've to go out.
And every time I go out, I have this terrible urge to cough.
It's probably allergies and I'm only noticing it because I'm out.
It could be stress. It could be an infestation in our evergreens.
It could be the dead walking single file over our rooftops
all night, lightly, or stomping. I spilled my coffee,
pouring my first cup. I placed a paper towel over it
and watched the coffee seep from a location into surrounding
territory, just like the commercial, Bounty, the quicker
picker-upper. A brownish stain growing larger, like it's in a hurry,
charting the migration. I name the ant Karma, and collect it
along with the coffee. The world sings and snickers, as you
are both the door and the opening of the door. The ant
returns from the netherworld with a cough. We meet
in the test kitchen, over meatloaf. "It's just me and you," we say.
"Let's settle this." It's not always clear what's expected of you.
And if they ask you, "Where shall we go?" you are to tell them,
those destined for fire, to fire; those destined for sickness,
to sickness; those destined for the trash, to the trash.
The plants need watering. And I feel I'm acting, filling
the pitcher. Like it's the plot of a movie, "the joy of watering
plants," when so much else is falling apart, the house filling
with the scent of wet soil, the past flattens beneath me
and an unnamable longing circles the parking lots of summer.

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Copyright © 2023 John Gallaher All rights reserved
from Bennington Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission