The Flexible Death
                            After Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew

Imagine the end of the world. It’s foggy and bones
in the mist rise up like Cain against Abel.

Skeletons cackle, they’ve seen
the other side. “Longer than you think.”

A dead army, they come after you
and you’re fleeing in a raft on a lake

the one near the mental hospital
where you can hear the loons scream.

Do you love?

Operate like a survivor
and cut off the limbs you don’t need.

Find eternal life, write a new
ending without reapers

their black hoods, bone
hands, their sickles.

"Airbrush 01" Painting by Ivan Young