My late wife’s family
never spoke of death
as if by not speaking
of it, it wouldn’t happen.

My father-in-law, at sixty-
nine, died first, dropping
dead of a heart attack.

My wife went next, dying
in a day at forty-nine, of
a subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Then came my mother-in-law
who died of old age at ninety-
eight.

And here I am speaking
of the dead.