Pete Oligarch, 108

(Wrapped in a blanket like Psycho's Anthony Perkins.)

The death of people I don't know
is like snowfall through which I pass,
an impediment or a concern
when it accumulates, downing power lines.

Other deaths, not quite mine,
are so many seedlings
thickening to a dark woods
that I can visit, marking time.
Here's 18 years ago. There, ten.

I knew some who faded quietly
in the course of expected decline.
It was my impression,
as they became uncommunicative,
they weren't abducted from their lives.
Stiff from vigils, stand with no small relief.

In the centuries ahead, Splendid Splinter,
we'll outshine DiMaggio.
I'll be Pierre, Petra, PT-109.

A few of us bound into the sky,
the last frames of Belle and Beast.
I'm my age and, zut, a contemporary
of the sun above discontinued species
in severely weathered strata.