Flatlining in the New World

in the new world,
death will be an allegory
turned into an idiom
which means
“to hesitate” or
“to cease momentarily”

as in:
“Mary, I’m dying on this menu.
Baked penne
or pasta prima vera?”

as in:
“Joe died at the green light
and missed his chance.”

as in:
“Die before you leap.”

in the old world
death is a way of expressing desire
or shock.

as in:
“when he told me he was gay
I just died!”

or:
“I’m still dying to see
the next big thing
in underworld fashion”

Death has a way of implementing
euphemism.
A thousand other words to take its place.
Death has a way
of crawling into other
vernacular spaces
like a mold
to mean a thousand things it is not.

In the new world
death will be a theory
like gravity
or evolution
or strings.

people of the new world
will find better ways
to synthesize a living body
with biodegradable cartilage
and saline fluids
to prolong the great hesitation

people will find better ways
to avoid decay
don’t judge them
you do it too.
your fridge is stocked with produce,
which is dead.
sealed and frozen and sprayed to look undead
to solve our necrophilic urge to consume death
death, death.

in the new world
bodies don’t rot.
they only dissipate
our plastics are environmentally friendly.

we will have
such sophisticated holographic techniques
informed by state of the art archival devices
recorded from birth
that when they are finally gone
you won’t know the difference.
you won’t even miss them.

They would have wanted it this way.