for Annie
                        All our dignity consists, then, in thought.
                                                                         Pascal  

“I don’t believe in hell at all”—

              she’s 61/2 and here we go, iambic
              all the way, doubling the double L,
              in a kind of ululation over the dinner plate—

“and I don’t think I believe in heaven”—

              the step back from certainty nicely caught
              by breaking the beat, the thunk midway of think
              on the brain: it’s one thing to pull the plug on hell

“but when you die do you just lie there forever?’—

              she wonders through the rhyme
              (Hey, Mr. Death, or, better, Hi!)
              into—smack—the question mark.

“That’s boring. Bury me next to Bubba with a pack of cards…”

              ’til, clink,

“Sorry, Annie, to tell you this—”

              voice of the brother, nine, the wise,

               “but all you do is turn to dirt
              all you’ll be forever is dirt;
              what you’re made of now is dirt…”

                           and she, interrupted, all fury and spit,
                           nailing the  meter again, hurls back,

             “Fuck you, Jacob, I AM NOT DIRT.״