John COTTER lives in Boston and has published poems in Panic-Attack and Pith.

I Deliver a Bag of Groceries to Death's Apartment

Death is a bachelor, but I expected
His place to be clean. Instead, the bed's unmade,
The long-past-polished floor's piled high
With clothesheaps; takeout bones; the ruined
Wreck of some machine it seems he couldn't fix
To save his life; a dirty fingered
Windowpane, beneath which, mounted on the sill
Ghostpetalstrewn, gloats a Polaroid: boy death,
His toys, jellybeans, black balloon.

I try his specs: death can't see shit.
I try his shoes: They fit. So then
Before I blow I leave my bill and lay
Things out: his booze, his cigarettes, his People
Magazine, dim down the lights. Just one

Regret: I should have snagged those shoes.

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