Mr Death is redneck-charming.
His wife is what my grandmother
would call "mousy."
...
Mrs Death looks like the checker at the
Food Fair.
She always feels a little chill
so she wears a blue button-up sweater.
She doesn't smile much because
she has crooked teeth.
....
Mr Death looks like your mechanic.
He carries a wallet with a silver chain
running from his hip pocket
to a belt loop.
He looks younger than Mrs. Death.
He has good teeth and knows it,
so he smiles a lot.
He's never met a stranger.
He has the most beautiful eyes,
a blue you could swim in.
When he's talking to you
he touches you a lot.
He wants everybody to like him.
--David Jarvis, in The Born Again Tourist (Trillium Press, 1995), anthologized in Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950-1999 (2000)
Comments