Systematic Decay

No seriously
an accident, you think?
or malevolent design
it's how we were meant to fall apart
and how we were meant to be perfect
but only in the past, when
we couldn't quite see it
then

This is to get us ready for heaven.
this loose skin, mottled and blotched
the long-wisped fuzz of what hair we have left
the gauzed-over glaze of memory, milky
and milkier, like albumen being
slowly soft-boiled by years on years
- it is all to get us ready for heaven,
so that when we die, we cry out in
relief - so clearly now I see! So
firm and taut is my newborn soul!
my mind is mine again, and I
am home. Finally

Thank God

Those who die young, don't get it
quite the same way.
Those who die young,

become buddhists.