She gifts me a kiss or six—I wish. She is Future and Life anew, I am boy. Only in dreams have I seen her face, where I'm from she does not walk. She does sprint, head down, taking the first bodies she sees, she does not relish in the kiss. I know beautiful Death—her kiss, her kiss, her kiss—the church bells are ringing. The little boy is throwing stargazer lilies, I am gathering headstone. Oh, I am gathering dust and mercury, sand and wind, fire and plastic, wood and herbs, snow and salt, mud and blood, ice and earth. And headstones. And headstones. Begging Death to kiss me—she refrains. Tears are impossible. Like Unicorns, or Rainicorns, or Capricorns. Soot covered unicorn, hiding behind sorrow. Tear-less, baggy-eyed boy, steal a kiss. Or Life will continue its frolic, fields wither. Your collections of pleas won't matter. You are Death. Cherry colored Death. I am boy. I think. I. Think. Time obscures. Memories distort. I await the kissing leatherette of Death—transfiguration of feeling. You are kiss. I am boy. We are ecstasy. Won't you gather with me?

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"The Gathering Song" was inspired by merging the song "Warm Leatherette" by the Normal Band and the old Norse predisposition toward elongated listings. I wanted the setting of this poem to be where the modern and the archaic converge, and the uncanny becomes the crux of that convergence. So, personifying the narrator's love for Death seemed the least trite way to embody a lover that attempts to win over Death by gathering the most unusual pairs. Albeit, the uncanniness of this piece is the most perverse at the nexus of the many idiosyncratic combinations and their convergence, the uncanny should not be the sole focus of this piece, since this piece draws heavily from romanticism and aestheticism; and thus. continuing the piece's goal to pair and gather.