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"The Dead Are Not"

By Patricia TraxlerPosted Tuesday, May 30, 2006, at 6:37 AM ET

Click here to listen to Patricia Traxler read this poem.


The dead are not dead
yet. Always they take
their time, and we wait
politely, dreading
how real it will
have to be, sooner
or later, and at the
same time longing
to know that reality.

Nights, as we reach
to switch off our bed lamps
and close our eyes,
we dare it to take us
into its mouth
that smells of tar,
saltwater, sludge,
take us up then let us
tumble endlessly,
blameless again
and helpless as any new life
forced out for the first time
into the terrible light.

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Patricia Traxler is the author of Forbidden Words (poems) and the novel Blood.
For Slate's poetry submission guidelines, click here.

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