How strange will be my death, of which I've been thinking since childhood:

A sedentary old man leaving a small-town library

leans to one side and eventually collapses on the lawn.

 

I've every reason to believe that I'll experience what the others have

experienced

while I climb the stairs carrying my supper in a plastic bag,

not even turning to look at the one who in that moment descends curly-haired

and wearing a party dress.

 

It could be an ordinary death on a train:

a man who carefully studies the fields and hills in snow,

shuts his eyes folds his hands in his lap, and no longer sees what only

a moment ago he admired.

 

I'm trying to remember other possibilities and so, here I am once again,

disguised as myself in a small, merry company,

where, after emptying my glass, I fall on the floor laughing, and pulling after

me the tablecloth with the vase full of roses.

 

My death, of course, would have a spiritual meaning

in some mountain sanatorium for the insane

where croaking we complain to each other in beds with freshly changed sheets.

 

It could happen that I'll die in some way very different from the one I

anticipate:

in the company of my wife and daughter, surrounded by books,

while outside a neighbor is trying to start a car that the night has surprised

with snow.