I've Seen Death

I've seen Death — his shadow woke me
as he walked through the alley by my house
on his way to the gas station for a pack of smokes
and my neighbor who was bleeding out
beside the pump.
I watched him light up, and fill his black van
with enough fuel to get Mark to wherever he was going.
Death didn’t hide his face from the cold
he was pale with a shaved head and a black goatee
and tattoos that climbed up his neck like ivy
on the walls on an ancient castle.
He never exhaled the smoke from the cigarette
that warmed the frozen air
as Mark's blood melted the snow, then froze to the cement
when Death crushed the ember out in his stone-white palm.
He asked him what just happened, as he helped his soul up
from out his breathless body...
I never heard his answer.

I was just a kid, and at first I thought that sound
was firecrackers for new years....
until I heard the sirens in the distance
then watched his blood soak through the white sheet
and rise to the starry surface of my young mind
to attract sharks
who were sleeping in the depths of my soul.
I watched them take his body away in an ambulance
that pulled away without sirens
dissolving into the snow while the world still dreamed
visions of dancing sugar plums.