"September" Response

I thought Lia Purpura’s “September” was very interesting with its unique look on death.  Her choice of adjectives was particularly intriguing.  The bones were positioned “perfectly” on “soft,” “welcoming” earth.  The cat’s bones were forever placed in a posture of sleep and decomposition of the flesh is described as a “return…to its simplest components.”  The earth is “a home receiving the body in, expecting it.”  All of this suggests that death does not have to be the dreaded stealer of time, or the scythe-wielding demon of pain.  Though Purpura does not deny these are indeed faces death can take on.  She recognizes the historical image of feared death, the monster it has been recorded to be:  “fear is the black cipher of an open mouth, the red oxide smudge on a flank.”  Purpura knows death can be ruthless, but she chooses to write about a death that was natural and understood.  Perhaps her story’s greatest achievement was showing the many masks of death instead of relying retelling a myth older than the cave walls it was painted upon.