Celebrity Death

In dead celebrities, you could almost see death hanging there in their eyes, suspended like a waiting birthday surprise I see it shrouded now in photos, films that once stared straight through me: how they missed the beat of their death by seconds; but I see it, retroactively. Marilyn's livid white of death mysterious stricken down in her prime so that there was no time; no time for makeup, or mine of expressions to take hard edges off foreshadowed signs. Subcutaneous death, awaiting eyelid's curtains to flutter open one last time- whirring cameras they won’t hear again- Get as close as you want to now, you know the flash won't bother them.