Death packs a sack lunch:
a little ham salad, some saltines,
and seven deviled eggs.
He lounges by the pool,
the end marked NO DIVING
in blood-red letters.
He throws off his cloak
to let the sun tinge
his ghostly white skin,
then runs down the list
he’s committed to memory—
heat stroke, heart attack, bee sting—
before settling on an old standby.
He spreads a little ham salad
on a saltine with the tip of his scythe
and watches the fat boy
who forgot to wear his water wings
run along the edge
Kip Knott is a writer, poet, teacher, photographer, and part-time art dealer living in Delaware, Ohio. His new book of poetry, The Misanthrope in Moonlight, is available from Bottlecap Press. He spends all his spare time traveling the back roads of the Midwest and Appalachia taking photographs and searching for lost art treasures.
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