Who Is Not

Few lives are a life.
Most are knots of lives,
Some of which you name.

It was thought a corpse
Had lost its form, lost
Its soul, lost its life.

But life is like that.
A corpse on ice slows
Life, slows its own lives,

And has lost some life,
But a corpse that breathes,
Walks, and has a name,

Sheds lives all the time,
Builds and picks up more
And more lives as well,

And will do so still
Once its lungs fall in.
Loosed knots burn frayed ends.

There was a small flame,
Brief knot in the corpse,
Like its breath, but not,

Part of its thoughts, but
Not just thought, tied up
In names, named, not. Shame.