When death

When death threatened you and me
and took you, my sister,
and my cousins Ken and A V instead,
I did not wish I was dead.

As for me, 
I fell in the floor and my sister
found out she had leukemia, and A V is dead,
David texted me yesterday, and Ken died, was dead
and buried, for he wanted no funeral, said

he wanted no one standing over him,
them staring down on him, even a sister,
and telling how many women he had lead
astray and how many kids he fathered said

he was a wrestler, one Gene said
you couldn’t beat him in a fight
unless you killled him,
Mister Death.