In the Museum of Death the guests are eating lunch
made from a dead man’s recipe.
They use knives and forks invented by the dead.
Everyone sits in a room
built by those who are no longer with us,
everyone speaking words the dead have made.
Everything is archaeological:
prayer, toilest, table manners, cash.
Even the air was once breathed by the dead.
Look how impatiently the curator taps
his fingers on his desk. It’s getting late.
Very soon the guests will have to go.
James Pollock is the author of Sailing to Babylon (Able Muse Press, 2012), which was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award in Poetry, runner-up for the Posner Poetry Book Award, and winner of an Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association.
His critical essays and reviews have appeared in Contemporary Poetry Review, Canadian Notes & Queries, Arc Poetry Magazine, and others. He earned a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston, and is now an associate professor at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, where he teaches poetry.