At the Ford

I look down my Death
and stare her in the eye
sometimes,
and it’s when I know she comes for me
that I am wont to draw the sword,
to meet her dead on,
engaged on the battlefield
for a fight entirely up to her,
even though I live for pretend
that I could knock her hip out of socket
there,
where the creek ripples over the ford,
but, for what I fear,
she might baptize and
name me something new,
which, after all, is what Death is prone to do
if you choose
to meet her vis-à-vis.