William Harmon

Answerable Style

As
is my wont
I sit here
just studying these obituaries
from Sunday (whose paper lasts cheap me all week)
keeping up with what
does whom to death. As
a rule, your eminent heart surgeon
succumbs to
colon
cancer, but once in a while the gifted shrink
will
kill her schizophrenic
self. Butchers get slaughtered, hunters
shot, lawyers flogged to death by writs.
Live by the sword,
die
by the inch of solid
lead or
luminous meter of guaranteed steel.
Snakes do breakfast on
herpetologists, and
you’ll never guess how Fireball Roberts went.