is one of those words. 

Its image is always daunting. 

Not the welcome-into-my-home kind, 

but the final adieu. I thus rhyme it with death 

when I know it doesn’t. 

Walking in Chelsea with a friend, 

from a similar background, I pointed 

at a white ribbon wreathing 

a house. “Must be a murder 

scene,” we concluded instinctively 

stepping away.

(The note in the corner advised to do just that, 

but because of fresh paint.)