Exiting Lines

Exiting Lines

When I’m old or not old, when death comes, when death meets me
in person, me possibly shitting my pants, maybe I’ll remember taking
a shit in Rochefort-en-Terre, in the public restroom across from Notre-
Dame de la Tronchaye. Maybe I’ll remember the coldest porcelain seat
of my life, remember it like my sexual awakening. On the train to Rennes,
the French countryside reminds me of the Ozarks. Different, yes—cute
towns instead of trash dumps for yards and Dixie flags on their houses,
their cars, their t-shirts. Sometimes I wonder why France looks like France
and Missouri looks like Missouri. I wonder if Missouri will exist when I’m old,
if America will exist when I’m old, if I will ever grow old—like leaves turning
in November. Death coming for all their little lives, falling (breaking free?)
from the tree which continues on to spring, new buds and new leaves,
and France—once again, as always, is beautiful. I wonder if I’ll age enough
so there comes a spring I won’t live to finish, when death finally arrives
for a small coffee and a smoke, maybe a cafe in Reims, a warm day where
hopefully, I’m not shitting my diaper, and instead, me—thinking about how
far I’ve come, how many lives I’ve lived, how many times I’ve watched
Grace Kelly in The Rear Window, her voice in my dreams since I was eleven,
awakening me for a good long conversation, and Death, who has always
been so beautiful, sits and smiles and says—I love funny exiting lines.