When Do Artist Die?

It is not the moment

Our heart stop beating in our chests.

When we draw our last breath

No.

It is when the candlelight we followed

In this hazy twilight flickers

And leaves us blind to wander this wretched wood

I am a dead man

I spend my evenings among those lucky enough

To never lived at all

We watch the living

There are living on the stage tonight

Were I still a poet

I’d appreciate the horizon curve in their spines in sonnets

Would if I could describe the siren call

Of the synchronized steps of their pointe shoes along the polished wood floors of the stage

Turns and turns make tornadoes that shake this theater

A storm we all weather with gratitude

These young dancers are alive for now

And the echo of envy sits in my soul

Still my old knees creak with the speed at which I stand for my ovation

My palms string from the force of their clapping

I wander the land of the dead and watch the living

I long for a resurrection