A prosopopoeia is a rhetorical device in which a non-human element speaks or is spoken to as a human.

What do we say to the dead?

My husband of many decades
taunts that he will remember on his deathbed
the time I wasted being angry with him,

he really has no intention of guilt,
but of epiphanies, that word, that concept
we learned of when light bulbs were flashing
in our youth, when we met, and had all the time to waste.

What would I say to the dead when the time comes?

Yes, time was wasted, the tick tock of remorse,
but time also has those sweet bulbs of lights,
like tulips that stay under a  loamy earth
waiting for the time to burst through the dark
in a bloom of epiphanies.

Laurie Kuntz’s books are: That Infinite Roar, Gyroscope Press, Talking Me Off The Roof, Kelsay Books, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press, Simple Gestures, Texas Review Press, Women at the Onsen, Blue Light Press, and Somewhere in the Teling, Melen Press. Simple Gestures, won Texas Review’s Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won Blue Light Press’s Chapbook Contest. She’s been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. In 2024, she won a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, and other journals. Happily retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. More at: https://lauriekuntz.myportfolio.com/home-1