A Little-Known Fact

It’s a little-known fact, but Death is fond of wines from the southern Rhône. Some nights, we sit down together and open a Lirac or a Gigondas. He’s tried all the vintages and remembers when wine first appeared in bottles, when someone first got the idea to plug them with corks. He’s sampled everything at one time or another and recalls drinking Bordeaux with Jefferson and Falernian with Marcus Aurelius, so he’s certainly not going to be impressed by anything I have on hand. Nonetheless, we sit together, a few drops staining the tablecloth. If he’s surprised to be welcomed like this, he doesn’t show it. He’s never been pleased with how the books portray him, and the films are worse. He takes his work seriously, explaining that he is, by nature, a dualist, but one without opposition. I ask if his opposite isn’t Eros. He nods his head yes, but sadly. Eros, he says, is always elsewhere. They haven’t had a conversation since ... ever. I pass him a slice of warm bread and the decanter to pour himself another glass. Outside, he says, the moon is setting, and the stars will glint brighter in its absence. Death is modest. He’s aware his presence is usually unwelcome. Hospitality is rare.

:::

Toothache

Death has a toothache. He told me about it right before I went for a walk tonight. It’s not the kind of toothache that sends you to the dentist, but it’s more real than metaphor. He complains that he’s unable to keep track of everywhere he has to be and when he has to be there. Time is being uncooperative. I don’t tell Death this, but there’s something reassuring about his toothache. It makes me more tolerant of my own distractions. There were so many things I had to do today, and so many of them were pushed back until tomorrow. Death holds his hand on his jaw to keep it warm. I ask if there’s anything I can do to help, but he shakes his head no. He tells me about the time John Donne had a toothache, but he kept writing right up until the barber arrived to pull it. I’m suitably embarrassed. I confess that I’ve written very little lately, and my teeth don’t hurt at all.

:::

A Few Blocks Away

Death likes a walk in the sunlight as much as anyone else. He prefers a trail that twists through old-growth forests and hillsides, or so he’s mentioned, but he’s fine with joining me here in late afternoon when the sun slides between driveways and houses and spreads long shadows on my narrow, suburban streets. Death says there’s something funny about people walking their dogs, especially when the dogs squat on the curb and look anxiously at the grass and sky. He’s tried to explain it to me, but I missed the humor. We both agree, though, that summer afternoons when the heat lets up are best. You wouldn’t think the heat would matter to Death, or the cold, but he shrugs and asks rhetorically, “If you can be comfortable, why not?” I’ve told him about my friend who died last year—a heart attack one night and dead by morning. Death says he remembers but would rather not discuss it. He says on a walk you shouldn’t talk shop.

George Franklin

is the First Prize Winner of the 2023 W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize. His most recent poetry collections are Remote Cities (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023) and a collaboration with Colombian poet Ximena Gómez, Conversaciones sobre agua/Conversations About Water (Katakana Editores, 2023). Individual publications include MacQueen’s Quinterly, Cultural Daily, The Decadent Review, Solstice, Rattle, Another Chicago Magazine, The Lake, and New York Quarterly.

Franklin practices law in Miami and teaches writing workshops in Florida prisons. His much-neglected website is: https://gsfranklin.com/