Isle of the Dead, by Devon Balwit

Isle of the Dead, by Arnold Böcklin (Switzerland). 1880.

Isle of the Dead

To the muted splash of oars, 
you consider your new home.

You see you have brought 
too much, no room for it all.

The furniture can be burned 
and the books, the tennis racquets 

and the butterfly nets. Harder 
to dispose of the body; its 

clingy hungers. With enough 
time, surely, it can be done. 

Devon Balwit

This poem was written as part of the ekphrastic Halloween poetry challenge.

Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements(Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). More of her individual poems can be found here as well as in The Cincinnati Review, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Inflectionist; Glass: A Journal of Poetry; Noble Gas Quarterly; Muse A/Journal, and more.