AARON BRADFORD

A Thousand Deaths

Maybe there are a thousand Deaths.
Each turns the breath of a temporary life,
then takes a break. Otherwise, Death, restless,
would sweep away nine of us every five
seconds, an endless loop of severing.

If a thousand Deaths exist, do they specialize?
Is there one for heart disease, another for wildfires?
If that’s too specific, maybe all deaths by burning?
Accused witches, a hundred thousand
in Tokyo and one night of napalm, the elderly
in Paradise with no help to walk, all served
by a single Death. Are temps called in
with each pandemic—one to walk
halls in ERs, hands over gurneys, lifting or closing,
whatever Death does; another to sift comorbidities;
one to glide, so cliché, over homes,
whispering us to it, or maybe just away?

Is the Death who severs children a child itself?
Or the most senior? What’s better?
Or does each Death transfigure for an instant
to lure what lives in us toward this new glimmer?
Or is it just as it seems—random, cold,
indifferent to the impulses that build us?

Or maybe no Death exists, neither one nor many,
and when the light behind our eyes surges,
then flickers, the hand that touches ours
is only human, and someone once familiar hopes
to hold us a second longer, before the next light dims.

Aaron Bradford teaches creative writing and literature at American River College. His poems have appeared in print, online, and in theatre productions, including the journals Tule Review, Pearl, and Chiron Review; the anthologies Incidental Buildings & Accidental Beauty, Burning the Little Candle, and Late Peaches; and Tupelo Press’s 30/30 Project, Long Beach State’s University Players, and the Actor’s Workshop of Sacramento.