Death does not wait for us

it does not hover frozen in future time
it does not give chase.

I do not feel it in my gut
like my father does
walking the dog early in the morning
hours borrowed with a collateral
of bypass surgery and low sodium.

Death is the seabed accruing. 
We drift down, particulate,
a gradual disintegration
of layers like the crumbling
of sandstone cliffs in a million
tiny landslides, each dropping a handful
of pebbles from the walls.