What She Died Of

by John Grey

The dead leave and we struggle to learn their language.
Someone out there is worth 10 billion. That’s all I need to know.
Did it ever occur to you that gasoline and urine are the very same smell?
I don’t dare tell a soul that I’ve no need for the heirlooms I’ll inherit.

Softly, we lose our sight in crypts of what is precious to us.
Like second cousins going under the bubbling waters of the ocean.
Or at the spill, the fall, of the last horseman in the family.
Or the ones who could have been great had they been more serious.

I open the faucet wide to rinse away the blood.
A big fat book is hopeless to toss, useless in the wind.
Why is it that everyone born with wings can’t help flying into the sun?
She was going to plant roses there, no matter who tried to stop her.