Immortality

He who lives forever
walks past the cemetery
the plantations
the cannons
statues with inscriptions
landmarks he’s seen before
on every piece of land
in every state
in every country

he remembers

yellow eyes and cotton heads
corpses chosen out of a line up
a rigor mortis salute
underarm bloodstains
Provide the proof and
Fire!
Dropping into crinkled up poems
The law disintegrates

Oh to be debriefed in heaven
Tried by a jury of fallen angels
Instead
a price paid over and over,
the depreciation of beauty,
and more time to kill.