What identity could be yours, that of your death?

you are, some would say, your grave and its inside,
the gravestone with your name

but that only means saying:

alive, you were this body dressed and undressed,
this body that contained your thought (or soul)
this body that also bore this, your name

identity does not last in the world except by this analogy

you are, others would say, as you are in the memory,
if they remember, of those who had,
even just for a moment, known you

thus you would be, but parcelled out, changeable,
contradictory, dependent, in intermittent light,

and once all those others are dead you would no longer be.

and, surely, here again the idea of afterlife borrows its very char-
acteristics from the world that was your life

but for me, it is quite different:

each time I think of you, you cease to be.

Translation: Rosmarie Waldrop, Jean-Jacques Poucel and John Fenoghen