Immortality

(During COVID)

Five thousand years ago, Gilgamesh
said he’d live forever. He saw a person,
dead, and said nope, sorry, this is not
for me. I’ll find a way. I’m not doing
this death thing. I’ll be the exception. 
No final breath, no blue-ing of the limbs,
no becoming rigid, cold, eyes like
stones. Everyone seems to accept it.
They mourn, they weep. They say I’m
next. Not me, he said, wound up tight
in bonds of dread. 

So are we now, each one of us, deep
down believing no, not me. All
the others maybe, but not me. Not me.
I just won’t go. And, look at me! 
I’m out where dying lurks! I will not
wear a mask!

Gilgamesh, from five millennia 
of sleep, laughs out loud. 

           (…June, 2020)
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