Poetry - Chez Goodman

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The net is a capricious thing. One night, after being disconnected several times while trying to chat online with a friend, I wrote this cheery little missive:

365 Deaths a Year

I die 365 times a year,  more in a leap,   every night the cessation of sensation    and the prayer for renewed sight in the morning. I die 24 hours a day,  60 times an hour, 60 times a minute,   every cusp the end of a me and a rebirth. My life is that of dominoes... falling, falling, falling,  imparting a spark of motion and direction to the next   nearly identical monolith, destined to fall, its only    saving grace its impact on the next, until the next domino is too far, too misaligned, and it falls  flat, unable to continue the noisy clackety-clack of   making it from one touch to the next. I live so long as I continue to keep falling, one foot after  the other, one domino nudging the next, maintaining the promise   of the one before, and relying on the honor of the next. The ticky-ticky of my life seems so slow at the moment of contact,  so quick in memory of the rhythm of falling slabs,   so fearful of silence if the last one falls    with no other dominoes set in motion. Fifteen thousand deaths, and how many left?  Will the chatterings set in motion survive my silence?   I turned 40 this year. Dave Goodman 8/19/97