Old Poem: My Tailor

I try not to use dreams in my writing, since they are generally boring for others to read. This was not a literal dream I am recording/reporting, I might add, just a way of connecting some disparate thoughts.  I probably had been reading some science fiction (maybe even Ray Bradbury) where there were animatronic figures placed in cemeteries.  We probably won't have that, but there are now some grave sites that play recordings of the deceased, and I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't holograms some day.  To say nothing of the blogs of the dead that are maintained "in perpetuity."  As a species, we certainly have a hard time reconciling ourselves to death -- and the fact that the world will move on without us.  I believe it is true that we are tallest in our sleep (and, by extension, in the grave).

My Tailor

My tailor doesn’t want to waste a stitch.
He calls up in the middle of the night;
he needs my measurements
now that I am at my tallest.
Someone has ordered a suit to bury me in.
I go back to a dream about spiders
spiders in my cereal
spiders that I swallow
that then spin webs inside me
until I am the softest man that ever lived.
I can no longer move,
but I can see the invisible lines that connect people.
I am amazed to see how many people are linked to me.
They are so empty
that they will need me long after I am gone.
They will wire my body together;
I will sit at my grave and wave to them,
telling them everything they ever wanted to hear.