Insurance Is Not A Poetic Thing

This is a ghost story, but I can’t tell you who died.
I can’t tell you their name,
But I know it lies closest to your heart.

The name of one unborn, or born too soon, or born to die;
Child, older child, adult and adult as child,
A full room with empty eyes: life costs so much.

When bone turns against you, brain and muscle warp,
Heart holds no rhythm and breath no flight –
Can one live on soul alone? Even that
Lies buried. Dollars and plans –
The best laid of mice and men –
Are such a fine dust to choke on.

Ghosts are simple creatures. They ask for peace.
Ghosts dream
Of life for those not like them.

We may yet be ghosts, each one;
We may yet seek life for those not like us.
The unborn and yet to be born, those born to live long and die.

Don’t wrap the living in a shroud
And drop a life for death emerging.
Insurance is not a poetic thing
But it gives life or death, as surely as the Universe
And a great deal smaller, though not less complex.