I Have The Sense That If I

Nothing I Have Ever Written Has Been Admired As Much As The Announcement Of My Death.

God Is An Immensity, While This Disease, This Death, Which Is In Me, This Small, Tightly Defined Pedestrian Event, Is Merely And Perfectly Real, Without Miracle—or Instruction.

Memory, So Complete And Clear Or So Evasive, Has To Be Ended, Has To Be Put Aside, As If One Were Leaving A Chapel And Bringing The Prayer To An End In One's Head.

Death Is Not Soft-mouthed, Vague-footed, Nearby. It Is In The Hall.

The Cold Winds Of Insecurity... Hadn't Shredded The Dreamy Chrysalis Of His Childhood. He Was Still Immersed In The Dim, Wet Wonder Of The Folded Wings That Might Open If Someone Loved Him; He Still Hoped, Probably, In A Butterfly's Unthinking Way, For Spring And Warmth. How The Wings Ache, Folded So, Waiting; That Is, They Ache Until They Atrophy.