Poem du jour

Thank you, and please remain seated
until the fasten your seatbelt sign has
been switched off

by Astrid van Baalen


In the event of my death, you have a set of keys to the apartment. Go in,
read my books but do no keep them. I never understood what's mine is yours.
In the event - please remember I visited the Arctic Circle and coasted
in a helicopter above a glacier coming over the mountain like a bruised
tongue and that I got some really good sex (although not necessarily from you).
That on public transport invariably I hated the person seated next to me,
however good looking. In the event of my death not to worry, please remember
we love the dead much better than we love the living. This is a gift.
Dead, I will not escape from your stories as if someone forgot to close
the overhead closer; I will not tumble out. At last, I will have ceased to desire
to grieve, to moan, to hurt, to hope: I will have relinquished all my anger.


But remember, in the event of my death, that in language everyone cheats.
In the event - please remember that in the event everyone loses everyone else.