Kristen Lindquist

Not What You Think

On the highway passing an accident or on a small commuter plane to Boston shaken by turbulence, I think about how death isn’t always dramatic and you aren’t always moving when it happens. Though you’re always moving toward that unknown last moment, when you finally spot the sign held up with your name on it. A sign in the airport: One out of every three Americans will get cancer. A cell could be mutating in my liver or ovaries as I sit here. Or I could be infected with some new variant of Covid-19, dead by next week. Tomorrow is the Day of the Dead. Or tomorrow is Easter. The dead walk the earth. They walk beside us. Kingsley Amis, who died of a stroke in 1995, said death was when you reached the end of your words. The poet Shiki’s death poems included snake gourds and phlegm.

what’s left of the woodpile. . .
a mourning cloak opens
its wings to the sun 

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About the Author

Kristen Lindquist is a poet, writer, and naturalist in Camden, Maine. She has published two collections of poetry and maintains a daily haiku blog at kristenlindquist.com/blog.