'Don't go', they said,
'the night will be dark,
the road white with rain
and you will lay there,
eyes closed to reflected light
and wonder "Am I dead?"'
And I will be dead,
metallic form no longer form
nor the body a body,
twisted into death;
and trapped there,
not knowing whether that shape
smelling of blood and rain
is still a body or something dead;
and at the first sound,
perhaps a fall of split glass,
you will remember and breathe,
all the entire uselessness of your life
in a fearful rhetorical monosyllable
"Yes?"
and a huge black bird
will rise in flight on its tired wings.
Michael Hartnett
