Willie Smith

When Death Calls

Love opens the door inside the dream 
we call today. In eases Death. 
I sit the freak on the sofa. 
Slip into the kitchen to fix drinks. 
Hear Love invite our guest to leave. 
Death mumbles something I can’t make out 
above the seltzer fizz and the cubes clinking. 
When to the living room I return, 
hand each a cold sweaty glass, 
Love stands at the window, 
watching a cloud eat the sun. 
Death, on a cushion slouching, accepts the mix 
of bitters, lime, soda, spirits. Grins into my face 
he hopes Love and I are well enough making out? 
Opening the door to tongues tangling 
anxious poetry; fingertips brushing breasts; 
never closer to meet. And it’s me at the window, 
watching both guests dissolve in a squall of hail, 
ticking at the glass its tiny watches, 
making the world out to be cold and intimate – 
alone and alive as a thought 
seeking in a picture to hide.