When I think of the time i have killed, the days I have murdered
some that died easily
days like phlegmatic fish that were ready to die,
days like sluggish birds
that would otherwise have been prey for cats,
tired, exhausted days like ponderous, rotten trees
or old dogs with sleep in their bones
But even vital and lively days I have murdered,
stepped up behind them when they were happiest,
at the peak of their vigor,
and slipped my knife of fine-tempered boredom
between their ribs
and watched with no emotion
as they slumped to the ground
And often
usually in the cold grey winter
or when the rain came as a depressing drizzle,
I would take my day up to my apartment
and we would have a snack and talk
and listen to music
and then we would stretch out on the couch
still talking and thinking
untill i, sometimes against my will,
would hold a pillow over the days face
until all breathing stopped.
some days died hard
days i would ply with liquor and bludgeon to death
or poison with special emotions I had developed
Some I even starved to death,
locked them up in parlors of puritan sundays
which became stone towers
with moats of abstinence around them
and let them rot with television and bridge.
The days of summer I treated most gently.
I would always choose one of exceptional beauty
and we would lie for hours on the warm beach
turning slowly, slowly,
facing the orange sun as it moved through the sky
and then, just before dusk,
I would suggest that we go for one last swim
and we would step into the cool water
and wade past the breakers
and swim out, out past the sandbars and buoys
to a spot as deep green as dark moss
and we would tread water for a few moments
and look up at the first star
and then, as the trace of color drained from the sky,
I would press the day's head down under the waves,
waiting until the bubbles stopped showing
before I would swim back to shore alone.
Of course there was some remorse at first -
in autumn with its anguish of leaves turning brown
or in winter with its finality of ice -
when I would think back with a sense of loss
for all the beautiful days I'd destroyed,
though lately such qualms no longer disturb me.
But i know Im almost finished;
there is not much time left to kill
and there are fewer days I can murder.
Besides, I have been so careless with my crimes-
someone is certain to find the skeleton
of a murdered day wedged between the rocks
or the hand of a mutilated day
protruding from the ground
with some incriminating clue nearby,
like my glove or my comb or the print of my shoe,
and locked up with days and days and days
that will sooner or later
torture me to death