To Sleep
       

They die so many times before our eyes,
the footage rolling in a loop for hours:
run down or choked or shot or cast in flames.
They disappear as pixels dissipate
into the memory's short-term holding zone,
a wasteland filled with nothing we hold dear—
like oceans where trash and bodies are dumped
or gold-gilt back alleys where love is trumped—
the place we store cries we don't want to hear,
where we see no sin in being alone.
In sleep, though, the faces regenerate
and white noise coheres into whispered names.
We know it then, that all their deaths are ours.
We die so many times before we rise.

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Copyright © 2019 Dan Albergotti All rights reserved
from Cave Wall
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission