Thanatophobia by Connie Colwell Miller
At night, I see the dead
in my dreams. Rotting,
stinking, they become
the stuff of root and earth.
By day, I see the dead
on the roads. Raccoons,
housecats, chunks of deer,
bloated or stiff with rigor mortis.
One day, these corpses remind me,
your mother will die. One day,
too, your father. You must burn
their lovely bodies — the skulls and palms,
even the uterus that held you.
So I pose my parents near the window,
snap their pictures, hoping
to capture their souls,
just in case some mighty god does not.
