Death as a Four-Poster Bed
For Mike Nduka Oduah (1953 – 2015)

who first named him “Death”
was wrong: to give a strain
of sleep a name so scary.
when your bones are
worn, what do you
do? & when the
soul is weary,
does he not
sleep? do
you not
bury
the
cancer
when you
kill it? he has
fought his war and
won his rest. so dry the
tears forlorn, he’s not “dead”

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