What's it like being dead, asked Little Orphan Annie.
Death is like a lot of things, answered Sugar Daddy.
Death is pastel in a hundred high colors.
Death is the voice of our Reverend Mother.
Death is the wires inside a piano.
Death lives in Texas ten miles outside Plano.
Death is ten downers and two dozen uppers.
Death is what Charlotte served Jean-Paul for supper.
Death is alive in the Land of the Free.
Death is the way you've been looking at me
When you think I'm asleep
And you're counting my sheep
And I'm flat on my back
And my water turns black.

Written at Pascack Valley Hospital, 2/28/05