Poem About Death
︎︎︎ Wallace Mack
︎ Mar 4, 2026
"What's it like?" he asked
"it's like freshly fallen snow
it comes in a hurry
fierce and stinging
but after the winds have lulled
it's quiet and muffled
sometimes you can hear the bare treetops
crackling and breaking into one another
it's that bare patch in the woods
where under the full moon
even a doe and her fawn
quickly pass through
on the diamond-frosted snow
it's in that bare patch
where you feel it
where the footprints are the deepest
where only one man's feet will turn red and blister”
"Does it hurt?" he asked
"It doesn't hurt
so much as it aches
it's a gradual numbing
an erosion of the glimmer in the eyes
it's a longing foghorn
hanging in the choppy current
it'll echo for a time
until our ears forget to hear it"
"it's like freshly fallen snow
it comes in a hurry
fierce and stinging
but after the winds have lulled
it's quiet and muffled
sometimes you can hear the bare treetops
crackling and breaking into one another
it's that bare patch in the woods
where under the full moon
even a doe and her fawn
quickly pass through
on the diamond-frosted snow
it's in that bare patch
where you feel it
where the footprints are the deepest
where only one man's feet will turn red and blister”
"Does it hurt?" he asked
"It doesn't hurt
so much as it aches
it's a gradual numbing
an erosion of the glimmer in the eyes
it's a longing foghorn
hanging in the choppy current
it'll echo for a time
until our ears forget to hear it"
Wallace Mack is an American author and poet. His newest release is PURE YOUTH with Plague Circus Press.
Also by Wallace: Prayer
Also by Wallace: Prayer