Threat #1

Provisionally titled poem.

Death is a threat
a punishment poised to tell life its place
ensuring reverence
and fearful respect
for fine finality

Bigger than myth
bigger than beauty
primacy set in omnipresent absence
and conversation silenced
by no voice
and tender children,
like all of us,
recoil at oblique punishments
cowed into reticent life
beneath imposing ends