Don't Blink

I have a casual relation to death,
I make offhand references
to my eventual demise,
meeting the grim reaper,

I tempt the end of life on desert trails,
the end looks the other way
and I find a trickling spring,
a little shade, a place to rest my feet.

Death is never so scary as when it looks
straight in your face and doesn't blink,
a falcon that doesn't turn away,
a storm walking across the high desert

on lightening spikes, and this morning
a dark disease with a death grip,
a chest with a silent heart.
I lie still in bed, and stare back.