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As a prolific author from the Boston area, Peter F. Crowley writes in various forms, including short fiction, op-eds, poetry and academic essays. His writing can be found in Pif Magazine, New Verse News, Counterpunch, Galway Review, Digging the Fat, Adelaide’s Short Story and Poetry Award anthologies (finalist in both) and The Opiate. He is the author of the poetry books Those Who Hold Up the Earth and Empire’s End, and the short fiction collection That Night and Other Stories.

Death

Peter F. Crowley

Our bodies are warm
And then they stop

Within minutes they’re as cold as snowed over
South Dakota cornfields in the dead of winter
and as heavy as Idaho potato sacks

II.

The heart is pumping
And then it’s not

Neurons, forevermore, hold their fire
The swampy brain, fueling profusion of thought,
becomes a delectable object for the thirsty worm

III.

Everything we know evaporates
Luckily, we cannot grieve for ourselves
Others will,
perhaps

Some, we will haunt
Until they, too, fall unto the soft clay earth
becoming ghosts in the whispering winter wind,
their ethereal spirits growing ever fainter

— Peter F. Crowley

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