I think I’m rotting out
like driftwood floating
with the waves, bashing
again and again against
the pier

with each impact I lose
some of myself, maybe
just a splinter or an old
piece of bark, but slowly
I’m disappearing

this, I think, is how all
things die: bit by bit by
bit while all the world
goes on

death then is not an end
but a forgetting, the slow
drain of interest until
the pulse of memory
falls silent

looking out at the ocean
I wonder how much of
me has already floated
away